[3] It allowed timber from a wide area across central Ontario to be sent to Booth's mill in Ottawa, at that time the largest sawmill in the world.

However, when the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway (N&PJ) began construction of their north-south line in the same area, Booth officially chartered the N&N in March 1886.

[7] Traffic on the line was initially very busy, with the single locomotive hauling a train of 22 flatbed cars back and forth between the two ends.

At the eastern end the logs were simply rolled down into Nosbonsing, the entire operation taking two men only two and a half minutes.

The ladder was powered by a 44 inches (1,100 mm) waterwheel in a large flume with water supplied from the adjacent Wasi River, which also drove a pump when needed for fire fighting or refilling the locomotive.