Across the Shield
In 1872, even before the
Intercolonial Railway was open for traffic, the Dominion had accepted responsibility to undertake the
construction of a railway connecting Central Canada with the Pacific coast. The construction of what
was to become the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) is one of the more fascinating tales in Canadian
history. The CPR's impact on western settlement and development by non-indigenous populations was
profound and established a pattern of settlement that continues to influence the West to this day.
The construction of the railway represented a monumental task both in terms of engineering and
logistics. Within a decade of the completion of the Intercolonial the distances covered by mainline
track in Canada had more than doubled to more than 16 000 km, much of it because of the Canadian
Pacific.
The CPR's expansion into western
Canada was matched in the east by a consolidation of many existing railways under the Grand Trunk
Railway (GTR) and continued railway expansion in all regions. The Canadian Pacific extended its lines into
southern Ontario and into the Atlantic provinces. The railway had become an integral part of the
country's economic and social life. Between 1875 and 1890 the annual amount of freight carried on
Canadian railways increased almost four times, while the number of passengers doubled despite the
limited capacities of the locomotives and trains they hauled (Fig. 19).
Figure 19 Great Western Railway freight train, ca 1870 (CN002126) |
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