After decades of neglect and a particularly harsh winter, the roof of the historic Algoma Central Railway station in Searchmont has started to collapse.
Photographs taken before snowfall in November showed the roof of Searchmont Station already bowing under stress.
On Saturday it appeared that heavy snow and ice has taken a toll on the building, which was constructed more than 120 years ago.
Part of the roof appear to have caved in, causing damage to sections of the second floor.
The station was last open to the public in the late 1990s. The Algoma Central Railway passenger service ceased operations in 2015.
Over the years, exposure to weather conditions and repeated acts of vandalism have further deteriorated the condition of the station.
In 2014, Nathan Brown — then director of the Searchmont Station Preservation and Historical Society — launched an effort to restore the building to its original 1903 floor plan.
"The station will be planned out to be a museum, which will feature the history of the area and what it took to make Searchmont," said the society in a 2014 news release.
"Our hope is to bring people into Searchmont to check out the history of the area and how it came to be."
On Monday, Brown confirmed that restoration efforts ceased a few years ago.
"The project was halted and handed over prior to Watco taking over. I am no longer in the area," he said in an email.
Watco took over operations of almost 290 track miles of the Algoma Central Railway in 2022, after a deal with longtime owner CN Rail.