In this year began the project for the construction of the Niagara Falls Park and River Railway on the Canadian side, following the bank of the river from Niagara Falls to Queenston and being the first electric railway to be built in this vicinity on either side of the river.
Electrical traction was then in its infancy. No better evidence of this can be given than the fact that although the Canadian Electric Railway Company had ample surplus power in their development at the Horseshoe Falls, yet the electrical engineers of the day, reported that the cost of wiring and the loss in transmission of power for the only seven miles to Queenston, would be prohibitive to commercial economy. An additional equipment for development of electricity by steam was therefore installed on the river side at Queenston to help the power current from the Falls in operating the cars up the zig-zag to the top of the Queenston Heights.
This power house is shown in the view taken from the Heights and continued to be used until 1898, when the improvements in electrical transmission enabled it to be abandoned and full power brought from the company's water power house at the Falls.
The zig-zag series of curves by which the double track railway winds its way up the face of the Niagara escarpment from the dock to the summit at Brock's Monument is considered one of the achievements of Mr. Jennings, who was the engineer for the construction of this Canadian Power and Electrical R.R. Company, and had previously done some notable work for the Canadian Pacific Railway on the Fraser River and Rocky Mountain sections. As the cars wind up and approach the summit, a splendid and far distant landscape is opened to the view, one which the Duke of Argyle considered to be one of the "worthy views of the world." Below are the terraces and color-chequered fields of the vineyards, the peach and fruit orchards of this "Garden of Canada." Through these variegated levels the Niagara River curves in its silvered sheen to Lake Ontario where the blue waters close in the far horizon.
From Queenston Heights this electric railway skirts the edges of the cliffs above the great gulf in the depths of which the Niagara rapids toss and foam, and then circling around the sullen swirlings of the fatal Whirlpool, lands the tourist within the spray of the great Cataract itself.
Our ownership of the dock and the waterfront at Queenston, purchased so many years before, now proved its foresight and facilitated the making of arrangements with the new Electric Railway for an interchange of business. As a result it was now determined that a fourth steamer should be added to the Niagara River Line, and thus provision was made for the new connection and the increased business which would arise from its introduction.
This new connection apparently to the river was, after all, but the revival of the old Portage Route on the Canadian side, which had so long existed between Chippawa and the head of navigation at this point, but not exactly on the same location and had passed away upon the diversion of business to other routes.
The CHIPPEWA in Drydock at Kingston, Bow. ([page 184])
