{"id":226,"date":"2009-02-21T19:37:17","date_gmt":"2009-02-21T18:37:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/?p=226"},"modified":"2014-11-22T10:08:31","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T09:08:31","slug":"key-valley-railway-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/key-valley-railway-history\/","title":{"rendered":"Key Valley Railway: History"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_770\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-770\" style=\"width: 600px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-content\/uploads\/Key_Valley_Railway_locomotive_at_Lost_Channel-600x355.jpg\" alt=\"Lake steamship &quot;Kawigamog&quot; at the dock\" width=\"600\" height=\"355\" class=\"size-large wp-image-770\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-content\/uploads\/Key_Valley_Railway_locomotive_at_Lost_Channel-600x355.jpg 600w, https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-content\/uploads\/Key_Valley_Railway_locomotive_at_Lost_Channel-150x88.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-content\/uploads\/Key_Valley_Railway_locomotive_at_Lost_Channel-300x177.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-content\/uploads\/Key_Valley_Railway_locomotive_at_Lost_Channel.jpg 1213w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 709px) 85vw, (max-width: 909px) 67vw, (max-width: 984px) 61vw, (max-width: 1362px) 45vw, 600px\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-770\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Lake steamship &#8220;Kawigamog&#8221; at the dock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Key Valley Railway (KVR) was a standard gauge railway that ran between the villages of Pakesley and Lost Channel in Ontario between 1917 and 1933.  It was constructed to transport logs, lumber and people to and from the company&#8217;s lumber mill at Lost Channel.  <\/p>\n<p>The general location of the Key Valley is given in the following map obtained from Google.  The Key Valley was just 12 miles long; the western end met the Canadian Pacific Railway at Pakesley; the eastern end was the company town of Lost Channel.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" width=\"425\" height=\"350\" frameborder=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\" marginheight=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" src=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=118352296448515119437.00046a702e3153a5d5eff&amp;ll=45.904904,-80.418194&amp;spn=0.167231,0.291824&amp;z=11&amp;output=embed\"><\/iframe><br \/><small>View <a href=\"http:\/\/maps.google.com\/maps\/ms?hl=en&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;t=h&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=118352296448515119437.00046a702e3153a5d5eff&amp;ll=45.904904,-80.418194&amp;spn=0.167231,0.291824&amp;z=11&amp;source=embed\" style=\"color:#0000FF;text-align:center\">The Key Valley Railway<\/a> in a larger map<\/small><\/p>\n<p>The construction of the standard gauge Key Valley Railway was started by the Lauder, Spears and Howland Company in 1914. Before the railway was built, the company used a rugged bush trail to haul lumber to a siding on the Canadian National Railway. Unfortunately, the trail was difficult to maintain and was often impassible. The new railroad, named the Key Valley Railway for the narrow valley in which the roadbed lay, would head directly west of Lost Channel to connect with the Canadian Pacific Railway at Pakesley. Unfortunately, the construction costs of the railway almost bankrupted the Lauder, Spears and Howland Company. In 1917, the Schroeder Mills and Timber Company bought up the financially troubled Lauder company and finished the railway.<\/p>\n<p>In the 1920&#8217;s, Lost Channel was a bustling place. The sawmill there was the largest in the area. Within the town site proper, about 300 people lived. Along with the Schroeder Company&#8217;s bunkhouses and cookeries for its workers, Lost Channel had stores, a hospital and a school. They even had electrical power.<\/p>\n<p>The railway also connected with the steamship &#8220;Kawigamog&#8221; which served various villages and resorts on the Pickerel River system.  By the mid 1920&#8217;s, upwards of 1,200 hunters a year passed over the KVR and onto the &#8220;Kawigamog&#8221; to arrive the Kawigamog Lodge.<\/p>\n<p>At the other end of the KVR, Pakesley also grew. Here, the Schroeder Company kept its large lumber storage yards from which it supplied the Toronto, Detroit, Chicago and New York markets. In the 1920&#8217;s, Pakesley grew to include a post office and a hotel as well as receiving a new CPR station in 1924 to handle the increased passenger traffic to and from Lost Channel.<\/p>\n<p>In 1927, the Schroeder Company, perhaps recognizing that their lumber limits were nearing exhaustion, sold the company to a new company, the Pakesley Lumber Company. In 1930, a devastating fire destroyed the Lost Channel mill, and by 1933, Lost Channel was a ghost town. Pakesley survived into the 1960&#8217;s as an important CPR section house, but by 1970, it too had become a ghost town. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Key Valley Railway (KVR) was a standard gauge railway that ran between the villages of Pakesley and Lost Channel in Ontario between 1917 and 1933. It was constructed to transport logs, lumber and people to and from the company&#8217;s lumber mill at Lost Channel. The general location of the Key Valley is given in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/key-valley-railway-history\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Key Valley Railway: History&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-keyvalley"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=226"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/226\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.stationstudios.ca\/trains\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}