The Ontario Southland Railway, a short line based out of Salford, Ontario, operates about 50 miles of track. Long known to roster vintage locomotives, President and CEO David Warne recently announced that the ALCO/MLW era of the Ontario Southland is over, and is selling some units to the Sartigan Railway, which is undergoing a major rebuilding and expansion.
Five locomotives and spare parts have been sold to the Sartigan Railway (French: Chemin de fer Sartigan), which had previously purchased locomotives from the Ontario Southland in 2020. The five locomotives sold to the Sartigan Railway in 2026 are RS-18s 181 and 182, and RS-23s 503, 504, 505 and 506, all built by Montreal Locomotive Works between 1958 and 1960. Powered by American Locomotive Company (ALCO) 251 prime-movers, once the pride of many fleets across North America, the MLW/ALCO locomotives are favored by some railways for lower fuel consumption and naturally lower acquisition costs as MLW/ALCO stopped making locomotives in the early 1980s in Canada and 1969 in the US.
The Ontario Southland will be working on disposition/sale of their remaining five MLW/ALCO locomotives and parts over the coming months, but will retain 16 EMD locomotives of various types, among them their famous F units used in freight service.
The Sartigan Railway, based out of Scott, Quebec, operates former Quebec Central Railway right-of-way between Lévis and Vallée-Jonction on Quebec Ministry of Transportation-owned property. With service five days a week, traffic has grown to more than 3,000 cars per year. In 2023, the Quebec Government announced plans to rehabilitate and extend the entire railway in an unprecedented return of rail service. The project, to cost C$499 million, will extend the Sartigan Railway to Thetford Mines Quebec and will be completed in segments.
The first segment reopened the line to Vallée-Jonction in 2025 with clearing, repairing and replacing of infrastructure on an unused 11.2-mile segment of the line south of Scott, Quebec. Rehabilitation was budgeted at C$59.2 million. The second segment is the more substantial, and includes full replacement of rail, replacement of 17 railway bridges with all new structures, 102 new culverts, and replacement of 40 grade crossings on 36 miles of line that has not seen traffic in more than 20 years. This C$440 million project is expected to open in 2026 following three years of construction.
With more track coming on line, the Sartigan Railway is purchasing additional motive power as it and Quebec Ministry of Transportation work to convert truck traffic back to rail service. The Sartigan and its mechanical staff prefer MLW locomotives as there is a strong history of MLW in Quebec.
The re-opening of the railway to Thedford Mines will create opportunities for magnesium and nickel recovery from the tailings of historic asbestos mines, and the railway will be completed right into the mining sites. More than 66 million tons of reserves are noted on site, including 21 million tons of magnesium oxide and 135,000 tons of nickel, along with other critical minerals planned to be recovered by joint ventures located next to the railway.
