Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

BY J. M. GIBBON (Of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company) and STEPHEN PARDOE (One of the Men who helped to lay the Track). THE Canadian Pacific Railway is one of the most important railway systems of the world. It owes its existence to the need for easy communication between a prosperous but isolated province on the Pacific shore and the older civilization of the eastern side of the continent. Between these two stretched, for many hundreds of miles, the rolling and almost uninhabited prairies of Manitoba, Assiniboia, and Alberta, and wide belts of extremely mountainous and almost impenetrable country. Previous to the open- ing of the Canadian Pacific Railway a journey across Canada was a. very serious undertaking. In 1871 British Columbia entered the federa- tion of Canadian states—on conditions, one being that a railway should The be built across the continent Origin of , . , , ,, *, .. z- r» to give her access to the At- the C.P.R. ® lantic Ocean. The demand for an iron track nearly 3,000 miles long, from Vancouver city on the Strait of Georgia to Mon- Difficulties to be faced. treal, at first staggered the Government, which, in the then half-developed state of the Domin- ion, could alone command the necessary re- sources. The country to be traversed included the difficult rocky districts on the north shore of Lake Superior; 900 miles of prairies rising gradually westwards ; and the vast ranges of the Rockies and the Sel- kirks, and the Gold Range of Mountains—vast billows of rock which were as little known then as the Central Asian ranges are to-day. The scant population promised great difficulties in the matter of labour and supplies ; while the Canadian winter, with its storms of dry, powdery, drifting snow, threatened physical obstacles even more formidable. However, the Government thought the matter over, and decided that what British Columbia had asked for herself would be good for the Federation at large. The Premier, Sir John Macdonald, a man of great persuasive Note.—The drawing at head of page represents the Lethbridge Viaduct, C.P.R., now building. Height, 300 feet i length, 5,327 feet. Taking both height and length into consideration, this is the largest bridge in the world. a,40S) 17