Intercolonial Railway - Construction

Construction

Fleming was appointed "engineer in chief" of the ICR project by the federal government. The majority of the construction was to be tendered to local contractors, with engineering oversight to be provided by Fleming's staff, however political interference and contractor negligence (or incompetence) led to escalating costs on some of the contracts, forcing Fleming to assume some of the direct contractor duties as violators were discovered and purged from the project.

Perhaps the greatest case of cost overruns was caused by political interference during construction of the section of new line between the NSR trackage at Truro and the E&NA trackage near Moncton. This resulted in several diversions from the most direct route:

• From Debert to the Wentworth Valley running a circuitous route known as "The Grecian Bend" through the iron mining community of Londonderry on the southern slope of the Cobequid Mountains. A, iron trestle was required to cross the Folly River and to this day the diversion adds 5 kilometres to the mainline.

• From Oxford to Amherst, running near the coal mining community of Springhill, along the northern slope of the Cobequid Mountains.

• The section running from the interprovincial boundary at the Missaguash River near the town of Amherst to Moncton was diverted further west to run into the Memramcook River valley to service the village of Dorchester at the insistence of an influential politician, A. J. Smith. The alignment is known as the "Dorchester Diversion".

To Fleming's credit, he insisted upon a high quality of workmanship in designing the route, using fills several metres higher than the surrounding landscape, where possible, to prevent snow accumulation, and mandated the installation of iron bridges over streams and rivers rather than the cheaper wooden structures that many railways of the time favoured. This latter decision proved extremely far-sighted as the strength of the bridges and their material saved the line from lengthy closures on numerous occasions in the early years during forest fire seasons. The scale of construction on the Intercolonial made it the biggest Canadian public works project of the 19th century.

Sections of the railway opened as follows:

• Truro to Moncton in November 1872. A major obstacle involved crossing the Cobequid Mountains with the Intercolonial's route running through the "Folly Gap", also known as the Wentworth Valley.
• Rivière-du-Loup to Ste-Flavie (now Mont-Joli) in August 1874. This portion of the route is entirely in the lower St. Lawrence River valley.
• Moncton to Campbellton in 1875. A major obstacle involved bridging the northwest and southwest branches of the Miramichi River near their confluence at Newcastle.
• Campbellton to Ste-Flavie on July 1, 1876. The main obstacle involved running the line through the Matapedia River valley where deep cuts would prove to be a problem for years during the winter months. Problems with clearing snow in some of these areas were resolved with the construction of extensive snow sheds—the only ones in eastern Canada.

The ICR was initially built to broad gauge of 5 feet 6 inches (1,680 mm) to be compatible with other railways in British North America, namely its component systems, the NSR and the E&NA, as well as its western connection at Rivière-du-Loup, the GTR. Before the construction was even complete, Fleming had the ICR re-gauged to standard gauge in 1875, following the trend of standardization sweeping U.S. and Canadian railways at the time.