Township awaiting negotiation request from railway

Conrad Boyce, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter

The Township of Uxbridge still hasn’t heard from York Durham Heritage Railway (YDHR) on whether it wants to return to the negotiation table, despite remarks made last week by the organization. And the clock is ticking.

On Dec. 21, in an announcement on its Facebook page, the board of the York Durham Heritage Railway (YDHR) said that “with a heavy heart,” it had decided to leave Uxbridge after more than 26 years and set up operations somewhere else in Ontario (although it didn’t say where). The announcement said the YDHR’s landlord, the Township of Uxbridge, had made it clear that the railway was no longer welcome in this town.

Previous to that announcement the Township had cited YDHR for several building code and safety violations in the Uxbridge yard, including four long-abandoned passenger cars which had asbestos contamination and had fallen into unsightly disrepair. The Township told the railway that failure to comply with these demands would mean that YDHR’s lease on the train station, due to expire Dec. 31, would not be renewed. The railway vacated the station by that date, two of the cars remain on site, and the lease has expired.

The tracks and rail yard, on the other hand, are leased by a provincial agency, Metrolinx, to the Township, which in turn has sub-leased them to YDHR, recently on a month-to-month basis. Following the railway’s Dec. 21 statement of its intention to leave, the Township told YDHR its lease on the yard and tracks would expire January 31 of this year, but that it would be permitted to enter and remove its assets, including rolling stock, until April 30.

YDHR then appeared to have a change of heart. On Jan. 9, again on Facebook, it announced it had parted ways with its senior staff, and was returning to a volunteer-led organization. The chief of those volunteers, board chair Michael Jacula, told the Cosmos that the YDHR loved Uxbridge, and it hoped to get back to the negotiating table with the Township to resolve its concerns, and continue operations here.

But CAO Kristi Honey says the Township has received no such request.

“We have not heard from YDHR since Dec. 11,” she said. “We learned about the Dec. 21 and Jan. 9 announcements on social media, like everyone else. It is our understanding the regulator is reviewing the status of their operating license at the end of this month. We await official communication from YDHR on their intentions, and updates from the regulators including the province, ESA and Public Health.”

At the Jan. 8 council meeting, Honey and Mayor Dave Barton said that once YDHR was deemed compliant with safety concerns, its proposal to operate in Uxbridge would be considered along with any other potential users of the station, yard and tracks.

Meanwhile, a number of people who either worked during YDHR’s holiday season or were parents of children who worked on the holiday trains have reached out to the Cosmos, as well as taken to social media, to say that they/their children have not yet been paid for the hours they worked during the holiday season. The Cosmos reported on the same issue in January 2023.

The Cosmos did reach out to Jacula with a number of questions to try to clarify YDHR’s status going forward, both on its presence in Uxbridge and on the payment situation. Neither he nor any other YDHR member had responded by press time.

Cosmos file photo