| | Page |
| Introduction | [ix] |
| I. | Suggesting a typically Presbyterian background of Scottish migration to Canada | [1] |
| II. | Sketching early years of service at country and city stations near the Clyde | [17] |
| III. | Recalling Van Horne and the Canadian Pacific challenge to the Grand Trunk | [35] |
| IV. | Reviewing vanishing practices, including ticket scalping and fast freight lines | [48] |
| V. | Portraying scantily the lives of a poor prairie line and a beloved prairie town | [61] |
| VI. | Remembering when farming in the West was misunderstood, and land could not be sold | [80] |
| VII. | Telling how Manitoba struggled through an era of expansion and the war of Fort Whyte | [97] |
| VIII. | Recording the first encounter of Mackenzie and Mann, with mules for a stake | [115] |
| IX. | Beginning the story of the Canadian Northern as a pioneer line with a staff of thirteen | [132] |
| X. | Describing meetings of a traffic manager with Sioux Indians and sudden millionaires | [148] |
| XI. | Indicating several considerations which made Toronto the centre of a Transcontinental system | [168] |
| XII. | Offering explanations why luxurious ease does not distinguish living on a private car | [190] |
| XIII. | Recounting midwinter episodes of location and operation in empty country | [207] |
| XIV. | Reciting events, the Great War being chief, which destroyed the Canadian Northern | [227] |
| XV. | Speaking some truth about the difficulty of operating a railway for the nation | [250] |
| XVI. | Narrating several occurrences which made huge Canadian National deficits inevitable | [269] |
| XVII. | Shedding sidelights on unities of Canadian railway management during the War | [296] |
| Appendix A | [315] |
| Appendix B | [332] |