Operations
The GTPR did not immediately realize the traffic potential GTR and the federal government had hoped. CPR occupied the more populous southern route in the prairies through Regina, Saskatchewan and Calgary, Alberta to Vancouver, British Columbia and was using land grants provided by the federal government as well as government incentives to draw immigrants and businesses to settle along its route. GTR did not have a coordinated marketing plan, and efforts at settlement were disrupted by the First World War. GTR rejected operating the NTR for cost reasons, forcing the federal government to assume that operation into Canadian Government Railways.
By 1919 it was obvious that the GTPR was not paying its way. The financial strain broke on March 7 when GTR defaulted on repayment of construction loans to the federal government, whereby the GTPR was nationalized and taken over by a Board of Management operating under the Department of Railways and Canals while legalities were resolved. On July 12, 1920 the GTPR was placed under the management of Crown corporation Canadian National Railways (CNR) and in 1923 was completely absorbed into the CNR.
The chateau-style hotels of the early 20th century remain iconic Canadian symbols. While the CPR quite rightly receives credit for many of the early hotels of this genre such as The Banff Springs Hotel, The Empress (hotel) in Victoria, The Royal York in Toronto, Hotel Vancouver, Quebec City's Chateau Frontenac and Chateau Lake Louise in The Rockies, it was the GTPR that built Ottawa's Chateau Laurier, The Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg, and The Hotel Macdonald in Edmonton. After the nationalization, this tradition continued with construction of The Bessborough Hotel in Saskatoon. The GTPR chateau-style hotels remain among the most impressive of these structures in the country.
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Famous quotes containing the word operations:
“A sociosphere of contact, control, persuasion and dissuasion, of exhibitions of inhibitions in massive or homeopathic doses...: this is obscenity. All structures turned inside out and exhibited, all operations rendered visible. In America this goes all the way from the bewildering network of aerial telephone and electric wires ... to the concrete multiplication of all the bodily functions in the home, the litany of ingredients on the tiniest can of food, the exhibition of income or IQ.”
—Jean Baudrillard (b. 1929)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It may seem strange that any road through such a wilderness should be passable, even in winter, when the snow is three or four feet deep, but at that season, wherever lumbering operations are actively carried on, teams are continually passing on the single track, and it becomes as smooth almost as a railway.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)