One of the old landmarks of Harriston was the bridge that carried Elora Street and Highway 9 over the Canadian Pacific railway tracks at the northwest side of town.
That bridge has been gone now for some 35 years, and the CPR railway line is also a memory. The original bridge there dated to the opening of that line, which ran from Orangeville to Wingham, in 1874.
The railway at that location was slightly below the grade of the old Saugeen Road. At the time it was the busiest highway in the area, and a level crossing would have required significant excavation. A more important reason was that the Harriston station was a short distance away. Trains stopped at the station and locomotives shuffling freight cars would have frequently blocked the crossing. Railway officials decided that a bridge was the best way to avoid problems.
The bridge was a wooden one, and over the years required frequent repairs. By 1915 the old bridge had become dangerous: too narrow for vehicles to pass one another safely, and too weak to support the increasingly heavier loads that used the highway.
The highway at that time was a county road, Number 12A in the scheme then in use. Members of Wellington County council met at the site in the fall of 1916 to discuss a replacement. A new deck had been put on the bridge, but nothing was done to beef up the supports. The county put up signs at both ends of the span, restricting loads to three tons.
At the June 1917 meeting of county council a motion instructed the county solicitor to contact the Board of Railway Commissioners to force the CPR to upgrade or replace the bridge.
That letter produced quick results. In July of 1917 Canadian Pacific bit the bullet and replaced the bridge with a heavier timber structure. As was usual for that company, the work was done as cheaply as possible.
Complaints began to be voiced as soon as the new bridge opened. The approaches were incredibly steep, and that caused problems for loaded horse-drawn wagons when the quadrupeds lost their footing on ice and snow. Motorists had to accelerate their underpowered vehicles to ascend the grade. That made side-swipes and head-on collisions almost inevitable.
Harriston and Minto councils were most vocal in their complaints. They sent correspondence to the railway, and when that produced no action they threatened to write to the Board of Railway Commissioners in August 1917. Councillors expected the issue to be resolved quickly and in their favour. They would be bitterly disappointed.
Initially, it seemed that a resolution of the matter would soon be negotiated. On Sept. 11, 1917, the warden, the county clerk, and members of the road committee met at the bridge site with several CPR officials. The group afterward retired to a meeting room, excluding the press. There was no statement afterwards concerning what, if any, progress had been made. It soon became evident that the parties differed significantly on what should be done.
At the December 1917 meeting, county council authorized legal proceedings against the CPR. There was also a report from John Young, the county road superintendent, describing the bridge as dangerous due to the steep approaches. There was also a recommendation that the roads committee approach the federal Board of Railway Commissioners. Council had authorized that step the previous June, but no action had been taken.
Canadian Pacific’s reply was read by county council on Jan. 25, 1918. The bridge was just fine the way it was, argued the railway, and they had no intention of doing any further work on the structure.
Despite 18 months of inaction, county councillors seemed less insistent than they had been a few months earlier. They instructed the clerk to write again to the CPR, asking for reconsideration of the case, and warning that the Wellington County was prepared to appeal formally to the Board of Railway Commissioners.
The result was another protracted exchange of correspondence. The matter came up again at county council on Dec. 21, 1918. Councillors struck a special committee to deal with the Harriston bridge matter. Advised by the county engineer, the committee contacted the CPR with specific requests: the bridge span over the tracks should have a slope of no more than 3.5%, the approaches a slope of no more than 8% (the same as the original bridge), and that adequate guard rails be build on the bridge and its approaches. In conclusion, there was yet another threat to take the matter to the Railway Commission.
The special committee met over the 1918 Christmas season, and reported to county council on Jan. 30, 1919. The committee recommended that the approaches be rebuilt to a 6% grade (which was the Ontario standard) rather than 8%. The report recommended negotiations with the railway, and an appeal to the Railway Commissioners should the talks result in an impasse.
The CPR refused to budge from its position. Interestingly, it was the town of Harriston, rather than the County of Wellington, that took the case to the Board of Railway Commissioners. Sir Henry Drayton, head of the commission, heard the case in June, and wrote his decision a month later.
Sir Henry’s ruling could not have been more plainly worded: “It is ordered that the company be, and it is hereby, directed to reconstruct the bridge crossing its railway at Elora Street, in the Town of Harriston, County of Wellington, and Province of Ontario, so as to provide for a highway grade with a maximum of six per cent, and an overhead clearance of 22 feet 6 inches over the railway, the work to be completed by the 31st day of October 1919.”
More than a few councillors must have scratched their heads in asking why the appeal had not been made two years earlier.
For its part, the CPR soon had a construction crew on the site.
County engineer A.W. Connor reported on the work done by the railway to the December 1919 council meeting. His report stated that the ends of the bridge had been raised slightly, and that a four-foot wood sidewalk, built of 2-inch pine plank, had been added to the southwestern side of the bridge. That required the relocation of the guard rail. The bridge was now 28 feet wide, including the sidewalk.
There was a stretch of 17 feet of 7.6% grade on the northwest approach, and a longer stretch of 6.6% grade on the southeast approach. Otherwise the approaches fell within the specified 6% grade. Connor pointed out that the steep sections could be brought to 6% by raising the surface three of four inches. He did not consider those stretches to be serious deficiencies.
Though not entirely compliant with Sir Henry’s ruling, both county and local officials were happy with the corrective work. Frequent maintenance and repairs kept the bridge in service for decades.
By the late 1950s, the bridge had become substandard. No one wanted to foot the bill for a modern replacement. The end came in 1976, when the bridge was demolished and replace by a level crossing that served the final decade of the railway line’s existence.