The line has created a new seaport on the Pacific, which will give a further impetus to our already immense trade with Japan and the other commercial countries of the Orient, as well as opening a fresh route to Australasia which cannot but help bind in closer union the British Dominions of Australia and New Zealand, already closely related to us by the splendid sentiment of Empire. It opens up splendid new wheat fields in the Prairie Provinces of Manitoba, Saskatchewan and Alberta, and taps also immensely valuable coal and agricultural areas in British Columbia. Through its branches it reaches the already created industrial and commercial centres of the great West, while its fleet of steamships links Prince Rupert with the other Pacific Coast ports, both on the Canadian and the United States shores. With the example of the growth of the Western United States since adequate rail facilities were provided for their cities and towns before us, it is difficult indeed to see how the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway can fail to establish itself as a dominant factor in the growth of Western Canada, a growth which at this view it is impossible to estimate and which only time can show.
Before passing from the history of the Grand Trunk Railway, a place must be given to the record of the great engineering feat in transportation effected by them. Previous to the building of the first tubular Victoria bridge erected by this company over the St. Lawrence at Montreal, the only communication with the Grand Trunk lines hitherto, was by ferry to Longueuil, then the terminus. Passengers and freight were carried on barges across the St. Lawrence. In winter sleighs were used across the ice. In a period of one to three weeks in the spring this crossing was either abandoned or very dangerous in the break up of the ice.
THE VICTORIA BRIDGES
As early as 1847 the Hon. John Young had desired to erect a bridge. In 1851 he used the opinion and report of Mr. Thomas C. Keefer, a Canadian, on the practicability of building a bridge over the St. Lawrence in the position eventually chosen and based on the findings of his report.[1]
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PROPOSED MONTREAL TERMINAL OF CANADIAN NORTHERN
WINDSOR STREET STATION