THE INTERCOLONIAL
The Battle of the Gauges--Expansion and Competition--Local
Bonusing--The Intercolonial
The first 'age of iron--and of brass' came to an end before 1860.
Between 1850 and 1860, it has been seen, the mileage of all the
provinces grew from 66 to 2065. By 1867 it had increased only 213
miles. In two of the intervening years not a mile was built. A halt
had come, for stock-taking and heart-searching.
This first era of activity had given as its most obvious result over
two thousand miles of railway. In Nova Scotia, Halifax was linked with
the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St Lawrence; in New Brunswick, St John
was connected with the Gulf, and a road was struggling Canadaward from
St Andrews. In the Canadas a 'Grant Trunk,' so nicknamed, ran from
Riviere du Loup the whole length of the province to Sarnia, while
lesser roads opened up new districts to the north or gave connection
with the grain-fields and the ocean {94} ports of the United States.
The western province, at all events, was well served for a pioneer
country, and the shipper and consumer had no great cause for complaint.
To the taxpayer it seemed otherwise. He had been induced to embark on
a lavish policy of financial aid on the assurance that the roads would
at worst be no burden, and at best might yield large profits to the
state. As a matter of fact, nine out of every ten dollars advanced
might be written off as lost. The Grand Trunk, Great Western, and
Northern roads were indebted to the old province of Canada on July 1,
1867, in over twenty million dollars for principal advanced and in over
thirteen millions for interest. Other roads were indebted to Canadian
municipalities in nearly ten millions for principal alone. Yet the
taxpayer was not wholly justified in his grumbling. There had been
waste and mismanagement, it is true, but the railways had brought
indirect gain that more than offset the direct loss. Farming districts
were opened up rapidly, freights were reduced in many sections,
intercourse was facilitated, and land values were raised. The
contribution to the railways was bread well cast upon the waters. It
would have been better, if foresight had {95} equalled hindsight, to
have given the money out and out.
For the shareholder, English or Canadian, there was little but
disappointment. Grand Trunk ordinary stock in 1865 was selling at 22,
and even Great Western at 65. The securities of several of the minor
roads had been almost entirely wiped out by reorganizations. In 1866
some $4,180,000 was paid in dividends and leases, representing only 2.7
per cent on the $158,000,000 which the roads had cost or were alleged
to have cost. Premature extension into unremunerative territory, for
political or contracting reasons, excessive competition in the fertile
areas, heavy fixed charges on inflated capital or leased roads, water
competition, absentee proprietorship, all played their part. Whatever
the causes, the results were clear, and capitalists long fought shy of
Canadian railway projects.
In the first thirty years of Canadian railway development no question
aroused more interest than that of the gauge to be adopted. The cows
of the good Dutch burghers of New Amsterdam fixed the windings of
Broadway as they remain to this day. The width of the carts used in
English coal-mines centuries ago {96} still determines the gauge of
railway track and railway cars over nearly all the world. 'Before
every engine,' declares Mr H. G. Wells, 'trots the ghost of a
superseded horse.' When the steam locomotive was invented, and used
upon the coal-mine tramways, it was made of the same
four-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch gauge. In England, in spite of the
preferences of Brunel, Stephenson's great rival, for a seven-foot
gauge, the narrower width soon triumphed, though the Great Western did
not entirely abandon its wider track until 1892. In Canada the
struggle was longer and more complicated.
It was a question on which engineers differed. Speed, steadiness, cost
of track construction, and cost of maintenance were all to be
considered, and were all diversely estimated. In early years, before
the need of standardizing equipment was felt, many experiments were
made, especially in the United States. In the southern states five
feet was the usual width, and the Erie was built on a gauge of six
feet, to fit an engine bought at a bargain. But in the United States,
as in England, the four-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch width was dominant,
and would have been adopted in Canada without question, had not local
{97} interests, appealing, as often, to patriotic prejudice, succeeded
in clouding the issue.
When the road from Portland to Montreal was being planned, the astute
Portland promoters insisted upon a gauge of five feet six inches, to
prevent the switching of traffic to Boston. Montreal, in its turn,
insisted on the same gauge for the Grand Trunk line, to ensure that all
east-bound traffic should be brought through Canada to Montreal. It
carried its point, and the wider or 'provincial' gauge became the
standard in the Canadas, and later in the Maritime Provinces.
Experience proved that it was impossible to maintain different gauges
in countries so closely connected as Canada and the United States. As
roads became consolidated into larger systems, the inconvenience of
transhipping at break of gauge became more intolerable. The expedients
of lifting cars bodily to other trucks, of making axles adjustable, and
even of laying a third rail, proved unsatisfactory. Late in the
sixties and early in the seventies the Great Western and the Grand
Trunk had to adopt the four-foot-eight-and-a-half-inch gauge solely,
and other lines gradually followed.
Meanwhile, the cry was going up for a still {98} narrower gauge. In
pioneer districts, at least, it was contended, a road three feet six
inches wide, such as had recently been adopted in Norway, would
suffice, and would be much cheaper both to build and to operate.
Between 1868 and 1873 two experimental narrow-gauge lines were built
running north from Toronto--the Toronto and Nipissing, and the Toronto,
Grey and Bruce. This proved only a temporary diversion, however, and
the decision of the Dominion government in 1874 to change the gauge of
the Intercolonial to four feet eight and a half inches, and the
adoption of the same standard by the Ontario government, ended the
controversy.
Memory is short and hope eternal. Soon after Confederation another
burst of activity began in all the provinces of the new Dominion. It
was distinctly the period of local development.
In Ontario the opportunity which the fertile western peninsula, jutting
down between New York and Michigan, offered for both local and through
traffic, led to many projects, much parliamentary jockeying, and at
last construction. The Canada Southern was built in 1873, running
between Fort Erie, opposite {99} Buffalo, and Amherstburg on the
Detroit river. It was controlled by the Vanderbilt interests and
operated in close co-operation with their other roads, the Michigan
Southern, Michigan Central, and New York Central. The Great Western
met this attack upon its preserves by building in the same year the
Canada Air Line, from Glencoe near St Thomas, to Fort Erie, giving more
direct connection with Buffalo. Both roads made use of the magnificent
International Bridge, built across the Niagara in 1873, under Grand
Trunk control.
The marked feature of this period, so far as Ontario was concerned, was
the rivalry of the cities along the lake and river front in building
new roads to tap the north country. From London there was built in
1875 the London, Huron and Bruce, halting at Wingham. From Hamilton,
or rather from Guelph, with connections to Hamilton, the Wellington,
Grey and Bruce reached Southampton on Lake Huron in 1873 and Kincardine
in 1874. Both roads were virtually branches of the Great Western, and
were expected to bring to London and to Hamilton respectively the trade
of the rich northwestern counties. The Ambitious City, as Hamilton
came to be {100} called at this period, a few years later invaded the
Northern Railway's territory by a line from Hamilton to Collingwood,
also extended southerly to Port Dover, but control of this road was
immediately acquired by the Northern interests. From still more
ambitious Toronto two narrow-gauge routes were built between 1869 and
1874--the Toronto, Grey and Bruce running northwest to Owen Sound and
Teeswater, and the Toronto and Nipissing northeast to Coboconk and
Sutton. Whitby also had its visions of terminal greatness, when the
Whitby and Port Perry was built in the later seventies. The Port Hope,
Beaverton and Lindsay, renamed the Midland, was pushed northeast to
Orillia in 1872 and to Midland in 1875. Cobourg's unfortunate northern
line was continued to the iron mines of Marmora. Belleville was linked
with Peterborough in 1878-79 by the Grand Junction. Kingston, with the
co-operation of interests in New York state, planned the Kingston and
Pembroke, which reached Mississippi in 1878, and five years later
compromised on Renfrew as a terminus. The bankruptcy of the Brockville
and Ottawa did not prevent its extension through an allied company, the
Canada Central, to Pembroke in 1869 and to {101} Ottawa, by a branch
from Carleton Place, in 1876.
In Quebec the chief developments were the building of a line connecting
Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa along the north shore of the St Lawrence,
and of further connections between Montreal and Quebec and United
States roads. The North Shore route had been projected early in the
fifties, but, in spite of lavish cash and land bonuses, it was not
until the Quebec government took it up as a provincial road, in the
seventies, that it was pushed to completion. On the south shore the
Eastern Townships triangle was interlaced by a series of smaller roads.
From Levis, opposite Quebec, the Levis and Kennebec ran south to the
Maine border, and the Quebec Central to Sherbrooke. From Sherbrooke
and Lennoxville the Massawappi Valley gave connection with the
Connecticut and Passumpsic, to which it was leased for 999 years, while
branches of the Central Vermont and minor roads opened up new sections
and gave further connection with Montreal.
An interesting experiment, motived by the same desire for cheap pioneer
construction which in Ontario brought in the narrow gauge, was the
wooden railway built in 1870 from {102} Quebec to Gosford. The rails
were simply strips of seasoned maple, 14'x7"x4", notched into the
sleepers and wedged in without the use of a single iron spike. The
engine and car wheels were made wide to fit the rail. In spite of its
cheap construction the road did not pay, and the hope of extending it
as far as Lake St John was deferred for a generation. A similar wooden
railway was built from Drummondville to L'Avenir.
In Nova Scotia the chief local development was the opening in 1869 of a
road through the Annapolis Valley, the Windsor and Annapolis. This
formed an extension of the government road from Halifax to Windsor, but
the province preferred to entrust it to a private company, giving a
liberal bonus. In New Brunswick there was much activity, all by
private companies. The western section of the European and North
American, from St John to the Maine boundary, was completed in 1869,
though it was not until 1871 that the road was opened through to
Portland--by a more circuitous route than Poor had originally planned.
From Fredericton a branch was built to meet this road, and a line to
Woodstock, which in turn was connected with the old New Brunswick and
Canada, still {103} pushing slowly north. In the meantime Prince
Edward Island was building a narrow-gauge railway nearly two hundred
miles long; in 1873 she was forced into Confederation to find aid in
paying for it.
All this varied activity was made possible by a revival of the policy
of provincial and municipal assistance. Whether from reasoned
conviction as to the indirect benefits of more roads, or because of the
log-rolling activities of rival towns and wily promoters, a systematic
and generous policy of aid was adopted. This aid came chiefly from the
provinces and municipalities, the Dominion as yet confining itself to
works of inter-provincial concern. Outright gifts for the most part
took the place of loans, since experience had proved that direct
returns upon the money invested were not to be looked for. Curiously
meandering were the routes which promoters mapped out in the endeavour
to follow the shortest line between two bonuses.[1]
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Governments could help to build roads, but could not ensure for them
traffic. It took very few years to show that the interests of the
public were not best served by scores of petty isolated roads, and that
the interests of shareholders were not secured by the cut-throat
competition which prevailed in certain areas. This competition was
keenest between the roads which were intimately connected with the
lines in the United States and dependent upon through traffic. The
Grand Trunk had cut into the territory of the Great Western by
acquiring the Buffalo and Lake Huron line, and the Canada Southern and
the Great Western were disputing for every ton of freight between the
Niagara and the Detroit. All were involved in the rate wars which
marked this period in {105} the United States. In 1867 the Grand Trunk
and the Great Western agreed to maintain rates, pool certain traffic
receipts, refrain from competitive building, and co-operate in service.
The agreement broke down; another was made in 1876, only to fail in
turn. More effective measures had to be adopted.
The outstanding achievement of the period, however, was the building of
the Intercolonial. It had been projected largely in order to make
closer union between the provinces possible, but, as it turned out, it
was Confederation that brought the Intercolonial, not the Intercolonial
that brought Confederation.
After the breakdown of the negotiations in London in 1852, each
province had turned to its own tasks. But each in building its own
roads had provided possible links in the future Intercolonial chain.
In Canada the Grand Trunk ran to a point 120 miles east of Quebec; in
New Brunswick, St John was connected with both the east and west
boundaries of the province; in Nova Scotia, a road ran north from
Halifax as far as Truro. A gap of nearly five hundred miles between
Riviere du Loup and Truro remained. To bridge this wilderness seemed
beyond the {106} private or public resources of the divided provinces.
Unanimous on one point only, they once more turned to the British
government. In 1857 and 1858 dispatches and deputations sought aid,
but sought it in vain. When the Civil War broke out in the United
States, official British sympathy was given to the South, and the
_Trent_ affair showed how near Britain and the North were to war, a war
which would at once have exposed the isolated colonies to American
attack. The military argument for closer connection then took on new
weight with the British government, and it proposed, to a joint
delegation in 1861, to revert to its offer of ten years earlier--to
guarantee a colonial loan for a railway by an approved route. The
colonies opposed the demand for a sinking fund, and again agreement was
postponed. In 1863 Canada suggested that, as the British government
had made an approved route an essential condition, a definite survey
and selection should be undertaken forthwith. It was agreed that a
commission of three engineers should be selected, one nominated by
Canada, one by New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, and one by Great Britain.
Canada nominated Sandford Fleming, a distinguished Scottish-Canadian
{107} engineer, who had been connected with the Northern and other
Upper Canada enterprises. The other authorities paid him the
compliment of naming him as their representative also, to facilitate
the work. During the progress of the survey negotiations for the union
of the provinces had begun, and when Confederation came about in 1867,
the building of the Intercolonial at the common expense of the
Dominion, with an imperial guarantee to the extent of L3,000,000, was
one of the conditions of union. The old difficulty as to the route
through New Brunswick was still to be settled. Again western and
southern New Brunswick struggled against the north and against far east
Quebec; again Halifax and St John found plausible arguments to uphold
their respective interests. Finally, the views of Sir George Cartier
and Peter Mitchell triumphed in the Cabinet councils, and in March 1868
the engineer-in-chief advised the selection of the roundabout Bay of
Chaleurs route--roughly 'Major Robinson's line'--ostensibly because
safer from American attack, nearer possible steamship connection with
Europe, and no worse, if no better, than the other routes in
potentialities of local traffic.
The construction was entrusted in December {108} 1868 to a commission
of four; six years later the minister of Public Works took over direct
control. Sandford Fleming remained engineer-in-chief for the building
as well as for the survey. Tenders were submitted for the construction
of the whole road, but the government decided to award the contract in
small sections. The road was not completed as speedily as had been
expected. Difficulties arose, expected and unexpected--cuttings in
heavy rock, sliding clay banks, extensive swamps, lack of rock bottom
for heavy bridges. Contractor after contractor found that he had
underestimated the task, and went bankrupt or threw up the contract.
Sometimes the contract was relet, sometimes the government completed it
by day work. At last, on July 1, 1876, nine years after Confederation,
the five hundred miles between Truro and Riviere du Loup were opened
for traffic throughout. In the meantime the Dominion had taken over
the Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island government
roads. In 1876 there were in all 950 miles of railway under the
control of the Dominion government, as against 4268 miles of private
lines.
[1] Ontario in 1871 offered subsidies ranging from two to four thousand
dollars a mile for colonization roads to the north; Quebec in 1869
offered money and later land; New Brunswick in 1864 gave $10,000 a mile
to various roads, besides taking $300,000 in stock in the European;
while Nova Scotia aided the Annapolis extension. Municipal aid was
even more lavish in proportion: Toronto gave $350,000 to the Toronto,
Grey and Bruce, $150,000 to the Nipissing road, $100,000 to the
Northern, and $350,000 to the Credit Valley. Hamilton backed the
Hamilton and North-Western by $200,000, London gave the London, Huron
and Bruce $150,000, and generous Kingston gave to the Kingston and
Pembroke over $300,000. Counties like Elgin and Simcoe, Grey, and
Frontenac offered from $150,000 to $300,000, while from townships alone
the Wellington, Grey and Bruce received $680,000. Montreal and Quebec
each helped the North Shore by a gift of a million dollars; Ottawa
county's $200,000 and the parish of Canrobert's $1000 were equally
sought; while to a lesser degree the Maritime Provinces showed the same
tendency.
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