But the undertaking proved to be one of the most difficult that the engineers, despite their wide and varied experience, had been called upon to fulfil up to this time. The country traversed was very sparsely populated, the forests were dense, and in winter, under the combined adversities of snow, ice, and intense cold, the situation was terrible. Labour was scarce, wages were high, and material was found to be expensive. In the end it was found that the average cost per mile approximated £8,000, or $40,000, so that to link Montreal with Toronto entailed an expenditure of £2,664,000, or $13,320,000. Moreover, it was one of the largest contracts that the engineers ever had carried out, while the physical conditions harassed them to such an extent that when they balanced up their books they found they had incurred a loss of about £1,000,000, or $5,000,000. The wide gauge of five feet six inches was adopted, and this factor developed into as keen a bone of dissension in Canada as it did in Great Britain, and as in the latter country it was finally abolished, so in Canada it was abandoned in favour of the standard gauge of four feet eight and a half inches, though the conversion cost the Grand Trunk railway a matter of £1,000,000 ($5,000,000).
NO. 2, “THE TORONTO,” THE FIRST RAILWAY ENGINE BUILT IN CANADA BY JAMES GOOD IN 1853
Photo by courtesy of Pennsylvania Steel Co.]
THE NIAGARA CANTILEVER RAILWAY BRIDGE UNDER CONSTRUCTION
It was built round the suspension highway bridge so as not to interrupt communication between the two banks.
Yet in building this line the contractors set up an engineering monument which for years ranked as the “eighth wonder of the world.” Montreal was on the north bank of the St. Lawrence, while the link connecting the metropolis with the Atlantic seaboard followed the southern bank of the river. The two sections of line were interrupted by the rolling waterway, which at this point is nearly two miles wide. The spanning of this gap, so as to bring Montreal into direct railway touch with the coast, had been one of the great obstacles to the incorporation of the railway in the first instance, but Messrs. Peto, Betts & Brassey undertook to forge this link. At that time it was so formidable an undertaking as to be thought absolutely incapable of realisation. Indeed, when a suggestion for bridging the St. Lawrence at this point was advanced for the first time, it was laughed to scorn.
“THE EIGHTH WONDER OF THE WORLD”