advertisement

---

Transport Canada recently extended its funding agreement with Algoma Central Railway Inc. by providing the railroad $2.1 million to fund passenger-rail service between Sault Ste. Marie and Hearst, Ontario, through June 2004.



Algoma Central carries passengers, employees and supplies to remote commercial lodges and wilderness tour points, some of which only can be accessed by rail, according to a prepared statement. Algoma Central carried about 11,000 passengers in 2002.



For the past seven years, Transport Canada has provided funding to Algoma Central. In September 2001, Canadian National Railway Co. purchased Algoma Central parent Wisconsin Central Ltd.



Until 1996, Algoma Central’s passenger-rail service was subsidized by the former National Transportation Agency, now known as the Canadian Transportation Agency. Transport Canada assumed funding responsibility when the Canada Transportation Act limited the transportation agency’s ability to subsidize the service.