Under CNR (CN post-1960), the NTR route across northern Quebec and Ontario became a marginal secondary main line with little in the way of through freight or passenger traffic. At Nakina, the CNR had constructed the Longlac-Nakina Cut-Off, a section of track linking the NTR with the Canadian Northern line at Longlac, completed in 1924. A section of the NTR mainline between Nakina and Calstock, Ontario was abandoned in 1986 and the Ontario Northland Railway purchased the section of NTR mainline between Calstock and Cochrane, Ontario in 1993. The mainline was also abandoned by CN for east of Cochrane to La Sarre, Quebec in 1997.