America’s Transcontinental Railroad may have opened a new era of
transportation but Canada needed a continent-connecting route as
much as the U.S., so it was not long until workers from one side
of Niagara Falls found work just north. Canada saw the many
possibilities. Territories would be linked; commerce opened up;
educational and medical resources shared. Canada could hire
experienced workers who had just built the Transcontinental.
Because of the construction of their railway, Canada contributed
what may be one of the first global agreements, an innovation
that truly changed the world. FROM THE FLIMSIEST OF ORIGINS In
the case of the U.S. Transcontinental Railroad, conductors
waited for telegraphed information, noting the times of other
trains on the line on small pieces of paper called flimsies, an
alarming term.The American railroad had wisely laid trenches for
the telegraph when its route was built, yet there still were
dark spots where no telegraph signals could be received and
therefore train times r