Engineering Wonders of the World
Volume I

262 ENGINEERING WONDERS OF THE WORLD. MINK TUNNEL, ON THE LAKE SUPERIOR SHORE. (Photo, C.P.R. Company.) so much hampered by red tape or political considera- tions. The new Company was originally given till 1891 to complete the road, but such was the speed accom- plished by the new contrac- tors that the junction of east and west was effected by November 1885, a year earlier than the readjusted limit. The prairie section was con- structed by Messrs. Langdon. Shephard, and Company. They com- pleted the The Prairie Section. track to Calgary on August bridges, tunnels, and galleries on this stretch alone cost 1,500,000 dollars. For sixty miles, between Heron Bay and Schreiber, the line is built through and around the abrupt and precipitous shores of Lake Superior, the lake itself coming full into view many times, and creating in the minds of those who wake to their first view of its waters in the early morning the impression, not of a lake, but of an inland sea, which indeed it is. 18, 1883, the very limit day specified by their contracts. The crossing of the Rockies was engineered by the North American Railway- Contracting Company under Mr. James Ross. As already mentioned, the Company which took over the railway from the Government decided on an alignment farther south than the Government route over the prairies. One reason for this was to secure a Change of Route. Right up to Winnipeg the engineers were never really pressed for time, but the situa- tion changed when British Columbia, which had entered the Dominion on condition that the railway should be built within a certain time, protested at the non-fulfil- ment of the compact, and threatened to withdraw. The Government was, as we have seen, only too glad to hand over the completion of the road to a company, which relieved it of heavy financial obligations, and would not be MOOSE JAW STATION. (Photo, C.P.R. Company.)