The later was supposed to connect to the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway (OA&PS) at Barry's Bay, but those plans were shelved.

Construction on the final portion reached Maynooth in 1907 but was never completed, and the line ended in the now-abandoned town of Wallace, about 25 km south of Whitney.

It was first settled starting in 1784 by Loyalists after the American Revolutionary War, and depended largely on fishing and barley in its early days.

The Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) reached Belleville on its way to Toronto in 1855, opening new markets to the county.

Local businessmen began considering a railway to collect produce from across the peninsula and connecting with the GTR at Trenton, on the north side of the land bridge with the mainland.

[1] The Prince Edward County Railway company (PECR) was formed in 1873[a] and began construction due west out of Picton towards the western shore of the peninsula, then turning northward for Trenton.

The opening of Central Ontario during the 19th Century was driven primarily by the discovery of a number of mineral deposits, notably gold and iron ore. As mines grew, principally in the area of Marmora and Madoc, a race formed between a series of railways companies who wanted to serve these markets.

William Coe of Madoc found iron ore deposits outside Brinklow and began looking for ways to commercialize the find.

[2] The group then petitioned the Ontario Legislature for the rights to rename the company and start construction northward, which was granted on 10 March 1882.

As early as May 1891, the Ontario, Belmont & Northern Railway (OB&NR), a wholly owned subsidiary of the COR, received a charter to build a branch line to the iron mines in the Marmora area.

Construction did not start for some time, and the 14.5 km line from Marmora Junction near Belmar to the Cordova mines was finally completed in July 1896.

A connection with the OA&PS, by this time reorganized to become part of the Canadian Atlantic Railway (CAR), remained desirable.

Construction on this link reached Maynooth on 7 November 1907, Lake St. Peter in 1909, and Wallace in 1911[5] - so-named for the line's surveyor and chief engineer.

[6] By this time the logging era had reached its peak and traffic was dwindling on the COR, and further expansion was abandoned, leaving the end of the line a turnaround-wye next to Joseph Lavalley's farm in Wallace.

McConnell's Mill near the current intersection of McKenzie Lake Road and Ontario Highway 127 was the first of these, and later taken over by the Rathbun Lumber Company.

On 22 April 1964 CNR applied to abandon the entire line from Wallace to Bird's Creek, just north of Bancroft where the COR met the Irondale (at today's "Y" Road).

Today only a 1.5 km long section of the line remains, used by CN Rail as a siding to service the grain terminal at Trenton junction.

The route of the original PECR was purchased by Prince Edward County in 1997 and is now known as the Millennium Trail, running for 49 km out of Picton and ending just outside Trenton.

A branch of the GJR, the Belleville and North Hastings Railway (B&NH), later met the COR about 1 km west of Eldorado.

Main stations on the line included Picton, Bloomfield, Wellington, Trenton, Frankford, Marmora, Coe Hill, Bancroft and Maynooth.