Important “First” Trains.
The first through train to cross the continent in Canada left Montreal on June 28th, 1886, and reached the western terminus, Port Moody, right on the dot on July 4th. It was a momentous event, for it was the beginning of a service that has revolutionized the travel of the world. At the send-off, the immense throng at the old Dalhousie Station was an enthusiastic one, and would have been more so, but Col. Stevenson’s battery was a little late in arriving to fire a parting salute, and time, tide and the C.P.R. flyers wait for no one. There were only two sleepers attached and they were comfortably filled. The only newspaper man aboard was myself, and I had written up the trip from Montreal to Winnipeg in advance, and sent it by mail—for I had been on the road frequently—only adding the names of the more prominent passengers by wire from Ottawa. When the papers reached us on the north shore of Lake Superior, Mr. Dewey, the superintendent of the postal service of Canada, who was on board, was astonished at the length and accuracy of my report, and wondered how and when I had written it, and as I did not enlighten him, except to say that he had seen me writing on the train, his mystification remained with him until his death. The trip was a glorious one, and the reception all along the line was like a royal progress. The people of fire-stricken Vancouver came over to Port Moody in great numbers by the old Yosemite to welcome us. There was no public reception at Vancouver, for there wasn’t any place to hold one, the original city having been almost totally consumed by fire just previous to our arrival. The flames had destroyed almost everything, but the courage and hope and faith of the pioneers who bravely struggled against the blighting effects of the calamity, and they did this successfully, as can be seen to-day in the magnificent city which has arisen through the splendid results of their indomitable energy and unceasing labors which made Vancouver what it is.