Early Construction
In 1880, a committee of the Newfoundland Legislature recommended that a narrow gauge railway be built from the colonial capital in St. John's to Halls Bay, 547 km (340 mi) to the west. Construction was started on the Avalon Peninsula in August 1881 by a group of investors. Prince George, was in 1882 stationed in the Maritimes as a midshipman on the HMS Cumberland and, during his time there, drove the last spike into the Harbour Grace Railway. By 1884, the Newfoundland Railway Company had built 92 km (57 mi) west to Whitbourne before going into receivership.
The same investors continued to build a 43 km (27 mi) branch line from Whitbourne to Harbour Grace (the Harbour Grace Railway), which was completed by October of that same year.
The colonial government undertook to build a branch from the junction at Whitbourne to the ports of Placentia and Argentia between 1886 and 1888.
Read more about this topic: Newfoundland Railway
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