Charter, construction, and expansion
The company was incorporated on November 10, 1852, as the Grand Trunk Railway Company of Canada to build a railway line between Montreal and Toronto.
The charter was soon extended east to Portland, Maine and west to Sarnia, Canada West. In 1853 the GTR purchased the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad from Montreal to the Canada East – Vermont border, and the parent company Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad through to the harbour facilities at Portland. A line was also built to Lévis, via Richmond from Montreal in 1855, part of the much-talked about "Maritime connection" in British North America. In the same year it purchased the Toronto and Guelph Railroad, whose railway was already under construction. But the Grand Trunk Railway Company changed the original route of the T&G and extended the line to Sarnia, a hub for Chicago-bound traffic. In October of 1856, the section from Montreal to Toronto opened, while the line from Toronto to Sarnia was finished in November of 1859. Also in 1859, a ferry service was established across the St. Clair River to Fort Gratiot (now Port Huron, Michigan).
The Grand Trunk was one of the main factors that pushed British North America towards Confederation. The original colonial economy structured along the water route from the Maritimes up the St. Lawrence River and the lower Great Lakes was greatly expanded by the duplicate route of the Grand Trunk. The explosive growth in trade during the 1850s within the United Province of Canada and further east by water to the Maritimes demanded that a railway link the entire geopolitical region. During this time the GTR extended its line to Lévis further east to Rivière-du-Loup.
By 1860, the Grand Trunk was on the verge of bankruptcy and in no position to expand further east to Halifax. On the eve of the American Civil War, it stretched from Sarnia in the west to Rivière-du-Loup in the east and Portland in the southeast. Colonists in the United Province of Canada, some of whom had experienced their territory being attacked by the United States fifty years earlier (in the War of 1812), were uncomfortably close to the giant Union Army and faced terrorist attacks during the mid-19th century in the form of Fenian raids.
Such security concerns led to demands for a year-round transportation system that British reinforcements could use should their territory be attacked during winter when the St. Lawrence River was frozen, and the only railway for British reinforcements to use would be the Grand Trunk connection at Portland, in the United States. Many citizens thought that the only way to finish the Grand Trunk – and protect the country – would be to unite all the colonies into a federation so that they could share the costs of an expanded railway system. Thus the British North America Act, 1867 included the provision for an Intercolonial Railway to link with the Grand Trunk at Rivière-du-Loup. The end of the American Civil War saw British North America on the verge of uniting in a single federation, and the GTR's financial prospects improved as the railway was well-positioned to take advantage of increased population and economic growth. By 1867, it had become the largest railroad system in the world by accumulating more than 2055 km of track that connected locations between its ocean port at Portland, Maine, its river port at Rivière-du-Loup, the three northern New England states, and much of the southern areas of the new provinces of Quebec and Ontario. By 1880, the Grand Trunk Railway system stretched all the way from Portland in the east to Chicago, Illinois, in the west (by means of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad between Port Huron and Chicago).
Several impressive construction feats were associated with the GTR: the first successful bridging of the St. Lawrence River on August 25, 1860, with the opening of the first Victoria Bridge at Montreal (replaced by the present structure in 1898); the bridging of the Niagara River between Fort Erie, Ontario and Buffalo, New York; and the construction of a tunnel beneath the St. Clair River, connecting Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Michigan. The latter work opened in August 1890 and replaced the railcar ferry at the same location.
Heyday
Common during 19th century railway construction in British colonies, GTR built to a broad gauge (Provincial Gauge) of ; however, this was changed to the standard gauge of between 1872 and 1885 to facilitate interchange with U.S. railroads. To overcome the gauge difference, the GTR experimented with a form of variable-gauge axles called "adjustable gauge trucks", but these proved unreliable.[2]
The GTR system expanded throughout southern Ontario, western Quebec, and the U.S. state of Michigan over the years by purchasing and absorbing numerous smaller railway companies, as well as building new lines. GTR's largest purchase came on August 12, 1882, when it bought the 1371 km Great Western Railway, running from Niagara Falls to Toronto, and connecting to London, Windsor, and communities in the Bruce Peninsula.
The company sold the line along the St. Lawrence River between Rivière-du-Loup and Lévis in 1879 to the federal government-owned Intercolonial Railway (IRC), and granted running rights in 1889 to the IRC on trackage between Lévis and Montreal (via Richmond); however, the IRC's construction of a more direct line from Lévis to Saint-Hyacinthe in 1899 saw most of this traffic transferred to that line.
Heyday
Common during 19th century railway construction in British colonies, GTR built to a broad gauge (Provincial Gauge) of ; however, this was changed to the standard gauge of between 1872 and 1885 to facilitate interchange with U.S. railroads. To overcome the gauge difference, the GTR experimented with a form of variable-gauge axles called "adjustable gauge trucks", but these proved unreliable.[2]
The GTR system expanded throughout southern Ontario, western Quebec, and the U.S. state of Michigan over the years by purchasing and absorbing numerous smaller railway companies, as well as building new lines. GTR's largest purchase came on August 12, 1882, when it bought the 1371 km Great Western Railway, running from Niagara Falls to Toronto, and connecting to London, Windsor, and communities in the Bruce Peninsula.
The company sold the line along the St. Lawrence River between Rivière-du-Loup and Lévis in 1879 to the federal government-owned Intercolonial Railway (IRC), and granted running rights in 1889 to the IRC on trackage between Lévis and Montreal (via Richmond); however, the IRC's construction of a more direct line from Lévis to Saint-Hyacinthe in 1899 saw most of this traffic transferred to that line.
Bankruptcy and nationalization
As the dominant railway in British North America, GTR was reportedly asked by the federal government soon after Confederation to consider building a rail line to the Pacific coast at British Columbia but refused, forcing the government to enact legislation creating the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) to meet British Columbia's conditions for joining Confederation. By the early 20th century, GTR desired to operate in Western Canada, particularly given the virtual monopoly of service that CPR maintained and the lucrative increasing flows of immigrants west of Ontario. The federal government encouraged GTR to co-operate with a local railway company operating on the Prairies, the Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR), but an agreement was never reached.
CNoR decided to build its own transcontinental system at this time, forcing GTR in 1903 to enter into an agreement with Wilfrid Laurier's government to build a third railway system from the Atlantic to the Pacific. GTR would build (with federal assistance) and operate the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTPR) from Winnipeg, Manitoba to Prince Rupert, British Columbia, while the government would build and own the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR) from Winnipeg to Moncton, New Brunswick via Quebec City, which the GTR would also operate.
As part of this program, the federal government encouraged the GTR to purchase the Canada Atlantic Railway (CAR) with lines southeast from Ottawa to Vermont, and west from Ottawa to Georgian Bay
