Algoma Eastern Railway

Overview

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The Algoma Eastern Railway (reporting mark AER) was a railway in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Originally known as the Manitoulin and North Shore Railway (M&NS) with a charter dating back to 1888, the full mainline was opened to traffic in 1913, serving the area along the north shore of Lake Huron between Sudbury and Little Current on Manitoulin Island. It and its sister railway, the Algoma Central, were originally owned by the Lake Superior Corporation, a conglomerate centered on Sault Ste. Marie which was founded by the American industrialist Francis Clergue. Despite ambitious plans to expand across Lake Huron to the Bruce Peninsula using a railcar ferry, the company failed to develop further and was acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway in 1930. With freight traffic low during the Great Depression, Canadian Pacific soon abandoned much of the Algoma Eastern mainline in favor of its own Algoma Branch. Remaining sections of the Algoma Eastern line were turned into spurs, with the longest surviving section operated as a branch line known as the Little Current Subdivision.²