National Transcontinental Railway - The Grand Trunk Partnership

The Grand Trunk Partnership

The completion of construction of Canada's first transcontinental railway, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) on November 7, 1885, preceded a tremendous economic expansion and immigration boom in western Canada during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. But the monopolistic policies of the CPR, coupled with its southerly routing (new scientific discoveries were pushing the northern boundary of cereal crops), led to increasing western discontent with the railway and federal transportation policies.

The federal government had encouraged the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) system in the 1870s to consider building the transcontinental rail line. During the same time, a government survey party under the direction of Sir Sandford Fleming set out across Canada to survey routes for the proposed railroad. The "Canadian Pacific Survey", as it was called, surveyed routes to a number of Pacific Coast destinations (including Victoria on Vancouver Island). When Grant Trunk balked at building a railroad using the survey, the government turned to the private railroad Canadian Pacific. CPR, one of whose directors was James J. Hill, from Minnesota, favoured a route further south, as Hill hoped to tap into freight flows from the northern U.S. states. This left Canada with a single transcontinental route close to the U.S. border, since CPR chose to use Rogers and Kicking Horse passes rather than the surveyed route over the Yellowhead.

By the early 1900s, the GTR was willing to consider building a second transcontinental system for the country – provided it received government assistance, similar to the CPR's deal. However, while the government and GTR were considering whether to proceed and negotiating terms, the Canadian Northern Railway was already building a second transcontinental rail line.

The Canadian Northern Railway was an upstart regional system for the prairies that had begun in Manitoba under entrepreneurs William Mackenzie and Donald Mann in 1899 through their amalgamation of several smaller branch lines. The CNoR started the process of building Canada's second transcontinental system between 1903 and 1912. The system was built from Winnipeg west to Vancouver and east to Toronto and Montreal). In addition to an extensive network of branch lines in the prairie provinces, CNoR had many branch lines in Ontario, Quebec, and the Maritime Provinces.

But Mackenzie and Mann had spurned the federal government's offer for assistance to expand the CNoR in 1903 and in doing so, the federal government under Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier committed to building a transcontinental system in partnership with the GTR. In keeping with the trend of railways to exploit virgin territories, the government-backed "transcon" would run from the port of Prince Rupert, British Columbia, across the northern portion of the prairies to Winnipeg, and from there across northern Ontario and Quebec to Quebec City where it would cross the St. Lawrence River and continue on to its eastern terminus at Moncton, New Brunswick, by way of a route directly across central New Brunswick.

The GTR board of directors wished to assume the financial risks only for the portion of the system west of Winnipeg, therefore the agreement resulted in two railway systems being funded by government: the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, which would run from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert and be built and operated by GTR as a subsidiary, and the government-owned and -built National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) would run from Winnipeg to Moncton and be operated by GTR upon completion.

The GTPR/NTR deal came in the heady final days of Canada's railway boom and would soon prove to be the financial straw that broke the back of Canada's railway industry during the First World War. Canada has supported two transcontinental railway systems for many years, but even in 1914 it was not clear that there was enough traffic for three. The GTPR/NTR system was surveyed and construction began in 1905 and the entire system was finished (except for the Quebec Bridge) in 1913. The task was monumental and no expense was spared in building a railway system of minimal grades and curvature. In crossing the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Quebec and northern New Brunswick, the NTR used massive bridges to span wide valleys. The Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River – the largest cantilever span in the world – took $40 million of the $170 million total project cost alone. The territory across northern Quebec and Ontario to Winnipeg, through the heart of the Canadian Shield, posed an extremely difficult construction obstacle. It also generated very little traffic.

The Grand Trunk Pacific/National Transcontinental route remained intact for only a few years during World War I. GTP built through the Yellowhead Pass on a route parallel to the already existing Canadian Northern, and then swung off near Mount Robson, to head toward Prince Rupert. Prince Rupert was one of several possible Pacific termini for the line. Originally, Port Simpson on the Alaska border was selected, but a border dispute with the United States in the early 20th century left Canada concerned about the defensibility of any Pacific rail terminal, and the terminal for GTP was moved south to Prince Rupert. Selection of this northern terminal potentially saved a day of steaming for ships to or from Asia.

The GTP track through the Yellowhead Pass did not last even to the end of World War I. As a government-imposed war measure to salvage rails for use in France, trackage rights between Edmonton and Jasper were arranged with Canadian Northern in 1917, and the rails were lifted from the nearly brand-new GTP.