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Locating the Line of the Bytown & Prescott Railway That winter of 1851, Walter Shanley marched over 300 miles on snowshoes through the most dismal swamps locating the right-of-way.  On July 26, 1851, he presented his 32 page report, complete with cost estimates to the Bytown & Prescott promoters.  Other than a large cut to get out of the St Lawrence River valley at Prescott, a bridge over the Nation River at Spencerville, and a bridge over the Rideau River at Bytown, the railway was almost a direct line between Prescott and Bytown with very moderate grades.

Canadian Pacific 0-4-0T #328 is shown at the CPR shops at Carleton Place, Ont. date unknown .  It was built by the Portland Locomotive Company, Portland, Maine in May of 1873, builders #327, for the St Lawrence & Ottawa Railway (a re-incarnation of the Bytown & Prescott when it went bankrupt) as their #1 "Oxford".  (This was the second locomotive named "Oxford" on the B&P/StL&O).  The CPR leased the St Lawrence & Ottawa in 1881 but the lease was only signed in September 1884.  It became CPR number #328 when the CPR took over the equipment in April 1885.  It was sold in May of 1895 to J.W. Howey & Sons, Lumber Merchants, Fenelon Falls, Ont.  Photo courtesy National Archives of Canada C-002605, Timms & Howard Collection.