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Oscar D. Skelton
The Railway Builders: A Chronicle of Overland Highways
Published by Good Press, 2019
EAN 4064066238858
Table of Contents
ILLUSTRATIONS
| 'THE SURVEYOR, OFTEN AN EXPLORER AS WELL, STRIKING OUT INTO THE WILDERNESS IN SEARCH OF MOUNTAIN PASS OR LOWER GRADE' From a colour drawing by C. W. Jefferys. | Frontispiece |
| THE FIRST RAILWAY ENGINE IN CANADA, CHAMPLAIN AND ST LAWRENCE RAILROAD, 1837 From a print in the Château de Ramezay. | Facing page 38 |
| RAILROADS AND LOTTERIES An Early Canadian Prospectus. | " 48 |
| SIR FRANCIS HINCKS From a portrait in the Dominion Archives. | " 66 |
| RAILWAYS OF BRITISH NORTH AMERICA, 1860 (Map) | " 92 |
| SIR GEORGE SIMPSON From a print in the John Ross Robertson Collection, Toronto Public Library | " 110 |
| SIR SANDFORD FLEMING From a photograph by Topley. | " 114 |
| FLEMING ROUTE AND THE TRANS-CONTINENTALS (Map) | " 118 |
| RAILWAYS OF CANADA, 1880 (Map) | " 130 |
| LORD STRATHCONA From a photograph by Lafayette, London. | " 134 |
| LORD MOUNT STEPHEN From a photograph by Wood and Henry, Dufftown. By courtesy of Sir William Van Horne. | " 140 |
| SIR WILLIAM CORNELIUS VAN HORNE From a photograph by Notman. | " 148 |
| RAILWAYS OF CANADA, 1896 (Map) | " 180 |
| CANADIAN NORTHERN RAILWAY, 1914 (Map) | " 194 |
| CHARLES MELVILLE HAYS From a photograph by Notman. | " 200 |
| GRAND TRUNK SYSTEM, 1914 (Map) | " 218 |
| CANADIAN PACIFIC RAILWAY, 1914 (Map) | " 224 |
| GREAT NORTHERN RAILWAY, 1914 (Map) | " 230 |
| RAILWAYS OF CANADA, 1914 (Map) | " 238 |
CHAPTER I
THE COMING OF THE RAILWAY
The Coming of the Railway—The Iron Road—The New Power—Engine and Rail—The Work of the Railway
On the morning of October 6, 1829, there began at Rainhill, in England, a contest without parallel in either sport or industry. There were four entries:
Braithwaite and Ericsson's Novelty. Timothy Hackworth's Sans-pareil. Stephenson and Booth's Rocket. Burstall's Perseverance.
These were neither race-horses nor stagecoaches, but rival types of the newly invented steam locomotive. To win the £500 prize offered, the successful engine, if weighing six tons, must be able to draw a load of twenty tons at ten miles an hour, and to cover at least seventy miles a day. Little wonder that an eminent Liverpool merchant declared that only a parcel of charlatans could have devised such a test, and wagered that if a locomotive ever went ten miles an hour, he would eat a stewed engine-wheel for breakfast!
The contest had come about as the only solution of a deadlock between the stubborn directors of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway, or tramway,