Historic Canadian railway linking Central Canada to Maritime provinces
The Intercolonial Railway of Canada (reporting mark IRC), also referred to as the Intercolonial Railway (ICR), was a historic Canadian railway that operated from 1872 to 1918, when it became part of Canadian National Railways. As the railway was also completely owned and controlled by the Government of Canada, the Intercolonial was also one of Canada's first Crown corporations.
Origins.
The idea of a railway connecting Britain's North American colonies arose as soon as the railway age began in the 1830s. In the decades following the War of 1812 and ever-mindful of the issue of security, the colonies of Upper and Lower Canada (later the Province of Canada after 1840) wished to improve land-based transportation with the Atlantic coast colonies of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and to a lesser extent Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland. A railway connection from the Province of Canada to the British colonies on the coast would serve a vital military purpose during the winter months when the waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence River were frozen and shipping was impossible, but it would similarly serve an economic purpose for the Maritimes by opening up year-round access to new markets.
Significant surveys were conducted throughout the 1830s–1850s. Several rival routes emerged: a southern, a central, and a northern route. In 1849, Major William Robinson recommended the northern route as most secure from American attack. Funding talks were established between the various colonial administrations and the British government, but progress remained slow and little was accomplished beyond talk.
Pre-Confederation components.
Railway construction came to the Maritime provinces as early as the mid-1830s with the opening of the Albion Railway, a coal mining railway in Nova Scotia's Pictou County and the second railway to open in British North America. Construction in the 1850s saw two important rail lines opened in the Maritimes to connect cities on the Atlantic coast with steamship routes in the Northumberland Strait and the Gulf of St. Lawrence:
An intercolonial rail system in the British North American colonies was never far from the minds of government and civic leaders and in an 1851 speech at a Mason's Hall in Halifax, local editor of the "Novascotian", Joseph Howe spoke these words:
I am neither a prophet, nor the son of a prophet, yet I will venture to predict that in five years we shall make the journey hence to Quebec and Montreal, and home through Portland and St. John, by rail; and I believe that many in this room will live to hear the whistle of the steam engine in the passes of the Rocky Mountains, and to make the journey from Halifax to the Pacific in five or six days.
But a rail connection between the Maritime colonies and the Province of Canada was not to be for another quarter century. Central Canada's dominant railway player in the 1850s was the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) and its profit-driven business model chose the U.S. Atlantic port of Portland, Maine, over a much longer journey to a Maritime port. As a result, Portland boomed during the winter months when Montreal's shipping season was closed.
Confederation.
Nevertheless, the geopolitical instability in North America resulting from the American Civil War led to increased nervousness on the part of British North American colonies, particularly wary of the large Union Army operating south of their borders. The demands for closer political and economic ties between colonies led to further calls for an "Intercolonial Railway". An 1862 conference in Quebec City led to an agreement on financing the railway with the Maritime colonies and Canada splitting construction costs and Britain assuming any debts, but the deal fell through within months.
It is speculated that this failure to achieve a deal on the Intercolonial in 1862, combined with the ongoing concerns over the American Civil War, led to the Charlottetown Conference in 1864, and eventually to Confederation of New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and the Province of Canada (Ontario and Quebec) in 1867.
Section 145 of the "British North America Act, 1867" created a constitutional requirement for the federal government to build established the Intercolonial Railway:
"145. Inasmuch as the Provinces of Canada, Nova Scotia, and New Brunswick have joined in a Declaration that the Construction of the Intercolonial Railway is essential to the Consolidation of the Union of British North America, and to the Assent thereto of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and have consequently agreed that Provision should be made for its immediate Construction by the Government of Canada; Therefore, in order to give effect to that Agreement, it shall be the Duty of the Government and Parliament of Canada to provide for the commencement, within Six Months after the Union, of a Railway connecting the River St. Lawrence with the City of Halifax in Nova Scotia, and for the Construction thereof without Intermission, and the Completion thereof with all practicable Speed."
Despite being enshrined in the BNA Act of 1867, it would still be another decade before a route was finally selected and construction was completed; however, as a start, the federal government assumed the operations of the NSR and E&amp;NA which were to be wholly absorbed into the ICR. The route connecting the NSR and the E&amp;NA was not contestable as the line had to cross the Cobequid Mountains and the Isthmus of Chignecto where options were limited by the local topography. In New Brunswick, it was a different story, as the choice was narrowed to three options. A commission of engineers, headed by Sandford Fleming had been unanimously appointed in 1863 to consider the following:
Despite pressure from commercial interests in the Maritimes and New England who wanted a rail connection closer to the border, the Chaleur Bay routing was chosen, amid the backdrop of the American Civil War, as it would keep the Intercolonial far from the boundary with Maine.
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&amp;NA trackage near Moncton. This resulted in several diversions from the most direct route:
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:
The ICR was initially built to broad gauge of to be compatible with other railways in British North America, namely its component systems, the NSR and the E&amp;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.
Operation and expansion.
In 1879, the ICR purchased the GTR line between Rivière-du-Loup and Levis, opposite from Quebec City. This line had been completed in 1860 by the GTR, and the ICR had had running rights on it since 1876.
The main line of the ICR competed directly with the steamship service of the Quebec &amp; Gulf Ports Steamship Company, which was reorganized in 1880 as the Quebec Steamship Company. By the late 1880s, this concern operated only one steamer, the "Miramichi," between Quebec and Pictou; all of its other vessels had been shifted to service between New York and the West Indies.
In 1884, the ICR built a branch from its mainline east of Campbellton to service the port and forest industry town of Dalhousie.
At Rivière du Loup, in the 1880s the ICR made connections with the steamers of the St. Lawrence Steam Navigation Company. This steamship line was absorbed by the Richelieu &amp; Ontario Navigation Company in 1886.
In the late 1880s, the ICR received running rights over the GTR main line between Levis and Montreal (via Richmond), allowing passengers and cargo from the Maritimes to Canada's then-largest city to transit without interchanging.
In 1887 the ICR took over and completed construction of a line running from Oxford Junction to Stellarton, along Nova Scotia shores of the Northumberland Strait. This line was known as the "Short Line" and it provided an alternate route for ICR trains heading to Pictou County and Cape Breton Island from New Brunswick.
The Temiscouata Railway was completed in 1889 from Rivière du Loup to Edmundston, New Brunswick, giving the ICR a connection with the Canadian Pacific line up the St. John Valley.
In 1890, the ICR completed construction of what had begun as the Cape Breton Eastern Extension Railway, with a line running from its former NSR terminus at New Glasgow eastward through Antigonish to the port of Mulgrave where a railcar ferry service was instituted over a route across the deep waters of the Strait of Canso to Point Tupper. The line then headed east across the centre of Cape Breton Island, crossing the Bras d'Or Lake on the newly built Grand Narrows Bridge, continuing to the port of North Sydney (with ferry and steamship connections to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland) and terminating in the burgeoning industrial centre and port of Sydney.
In 1899, the Department of Railways and Canals purchased the Drummond County Railway from James Naismith Greenshields and folded it into the ICR to provide the railway with a direct route from Sainte-Rosalie (east of Saint-Hyacinthe where it met the GTR main line) to Lévis. After this purchase was complete, the ICR stopped using the GTR's route via Richmond.
The ICR opened a branch of on June 22, 1903, between Rivière Ouelle Station and Pointe St. Denis on the South Shore of the St. Lawrence. In 1904 the ferry "Champlain" entered service between Pointe St. Denis and the North Shore ports of St. Irenée, Murray Bay and Cap à l'Aigle.
Also in 1904, the ICR purchased the Canada Eastern Railway, giving it a connection to the Fredericton area.
Moncton became the headquarters for the company and extensive shops and yard facilities were built, as well as a grand station, built to rival the Canadian Pacific Railway station in McAdam. Following a February 24, 1906 fire, the Moncton shops were rebuilt at a new location at the insistence of the local Member of Parliament, Henry Emmerson, who was the Minister of Railways and Canals in Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier's cabinet. The replacement shops were built northwest of downtown while the former shops location was converted into yard facilities. Both Rivière-du-Loup and Campbellton had unsuccessfully lobbied to become the new headquarters of the ICR following the Moncton fire.
As a result of the ICR with its subsidized freight-rate agreements, as well as the National Policy of prime minister John A. Macdonald, the industrial revolution struck Maritime towns quickly. The ICR was the perfect vehicle for transporting raw ore such as iron ore and coal to steel plants in Trenton, Sydney Mines and Sydney, as well as finished and semi-finished products to other Maritime and central Canadian locations. This led to foundries and factories of various industries springing up throughout Nova Scotia and New Brunswick along the ICR main line and branch lines.
Passenger trains.
Passenger trains on the ICR operated between all points on the system which included the following major sections:
Several "name trains" were started by the ICR, including the "Maritime Express" and the longest-enduring "name" passenger train in Canada to this very day, the "Ocean Limited".
ICR passenger trains also connected with steamship services to Prince Edward Island at Shediac and Pictou, steamship services to Quebec at Pictou, steamship services to the United States and Europe at Halifax and Saint John, provided railcar ferries to Cape