At one point on the “C.N.R.” mountain division the track is only 4½ miles from the base of Mount Robson—altitude 13,068 feet—the highest peak in the Rocky Mountains.
With the completion of the “C.N.R.” central Montreal terminal, near Dominion Square, which is approached by a 3.3 mile double tracked tunnel beneath Mount Royal, the Directorate will have an exceptional advantage in being able to move solid trains from west to east without backing down from dead-end tracks or breaking up their train formation.
The “C.N.R.” serves urban centres having more than 1,000 population containing 90% of the population of the towns and cities of Alberta and 97% of Saskatchewan, the centre of the wheat belt.
If the system should be extended to connect Toronto with Hamilton it would then have access to cities and towns aggregating 60% of the town dwellers of the entire provinces, which also produce 70% of their total manufactured products.
In 1916 the “C.N.R.” carried 132,000,000 bushels of grain: if reduced to flour and the manufactured flour which it transported be added thereto, the foodstuffs from territory along the “C.N.R.” would be sufficient to supply the British Isles’ 45,000,000 population with four pounds of bread each per week for six months. The “C.N.R.” should therefore, be regarded, especially since the advent of war, as an essential to the life of the Empire.
Statistics go to show that in the Provinces of Ontario, Quebec and Nova Scotia, where the principal Canadian pulp and paper mills are situated, those of the greatest capacity—or 53% of the total capacity—are situated exclusively on “C.N.R.” lines.
D. B. Hanna,
Third Vice-President, Canadian Northern Railway System.
For the year that ended with July, 1916, the exports of paper amounted to $21,680,000 of which 88% went to the United States, and the total exports of pulpwood, pulp and paper for that year were valued at $40,865,266. United States consumers gladly took 87% of this immense output, but the United Kingdom received only 6%.