Its assets were acquired by Canadian National Railway, which gradually abandoned much of the network as unprofitable or duplicative of its existing lines.

The lines split just west of the Canadian Northern Ontario Railway Federal Bridge across the Rideau River.

Efforts to save the station date to 1981, a time in which the building was in "a state of disrepair and abandonment" after fifteen years boarded up at trackside.

[3] While the initial effort was led by the local chamber of commerce, it soon gained backing from rail history fans in towns like Perth, Brockville and Merrickville.

In September 1986, CN had sold 58 km of the track to the federal government for redeployment in Western Canada;[7] in December 1986, the museum association raised $13,000 in a few days in an attempt to buy back 2 km of track which CN had sold to a Victoriaville scrap metal dealer.