The Huron Central Railway ( reporting mark HCRY ) is a railway operating in northern Ontario , Canada. It is operated by Genesee & Wyoming Canada, the Canadian subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming .
174-756: The Huron Central Railway was established in July 1997 to operate a 173-mile (278 km) route leased from the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario . The lease agreements encompass all but 4.8-mile (8 km) of track at the Sudbury end of the 181.2-mile (292 km) line, known within the CPR as the Webbwood Subdivision, as well as the 3-mile (5 km) Domtar Spur, which branches southwest from
348-739: A 999-year lease on the O&;Q on January 4, 1884. In 1895, it acquired a minority interest in the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway , giving it a link to New York and the Northeast United States. The last spike in the CPR was driven on November 7, 1885, by one of its directors, Donald Smith. The first transcontinental passenger train departed from Montreal 's Dalhousie Station , at Berri Street and Notre Dame Street, at 8 pm on June 28, 1886, and arrived at Port Moody at noon on July 4. This train consisted of two baggage cars,
522-468: A branch line thereafter known as the Algoma Branch. Surveying and construction began on a new mainline route starting from the junction at Sudbury along a new route around this time. During blasting and excavation along the new mainline a short distance to the north of Sudbury, high concentrations of nickel - copper ore were discovered by Thomas Flanagan, a blacksmith working for the CPR, at
696-416: A stuffing box that prevents water from entering the hull along the tube. Some early stern tubes were made of brass and operated as a water lubricated bearing along the entire length. In other instances a long bush of soft metal was fitted in the after end of the stern tube. SS Great Eastern had this arrangement fail on her first transatlantic voyage, with very large amounts of uneven wear. The problem
870-480: A transcontinental railway connecting it with the original eastern Canadian provinces of Ontario , Quebec , New Brunswick , and Nova Scotia ; this would result in a route through the largely-uncolonized Prairies, including the restive province of Manitoba , which had only recently been the site of the Red River Rebellion in 1869–70. Around the same time, amid fears of American expansionism north of
1044-618: A brief postwar economic revival due to the presence of the Soo Highway. Factors such as this, as well as the arrival of Greyhound coach services, depressed passenger ridership and non-industrial freight along the line. Additionally, due to the lack of a north-south CPR corridor paralleling the Algoma Central Railway (which had been built by the Lake Superior Corporation and was later acquired by
1218-523: A corporate reorganization, each of the major operations, including its rail operations, were organized as separate subsidiaries. The name of the railway was changed to CP Rail, and the parent company changed its name to Canadian Pacific Limited in 1971. Its air, express, telecommunications, hotel and real estate holdings were spun off, and ownership of all of the companies transferred to Canadian Pacific Investments. The slogan was: "TO THE FOUR CORNERS OF THE WORLD". The company discarded its beaver logo, adopting
1392-541: A corporate restructuring in 2001. The railway is headquartered in Calgary , Alberta. In 2023, the railway owned approximately 20,100 kilometres (12,500 mi) of track in seven provinces of Canada and into the United States, stretching from Montreal to Vancouver , and as far north as Edmonton . Its rail network also served Minneapolis–St. Paul , Milwaukee , Detroit , Chicago , and Albany, New York , in
1566-443: A day when travelling at 13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph). Her maiden outward voyage to Melbourne took 42 days, with one coaling stop, carrying 4,000 tons of cargo. Other similar ships were rapidly brought into service over the next few years. By 1885 the usual boiler pressure was 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) and virtually all ocean-going steamships being built were ordered with triple expansion engines. Within
1740-462: A day, paid in rice mats, and not including expenses, leaving barely anything to send home. They did the most dangerous construction jobs, such as working with explosives to clear tunnels through rock. The exact number of Chinese workers who died is unknown, but historians estimate the number is between 600 and 800. By 1883, railway construction was progressing rapidly, but the CPR was in danger of running out of funds. In response, on January 31, 1884,
1914-566: A demonstration project for the potential use of nuclear energy. Thousands of Liberty Ships (powered by steam piston engines) and Victory Ships (powered by steam turbine engines) were built in World War II. A few of these survive as floating museums and sail occasionally: SS Jeremiah O'Brien , SS John W. Brown , SS American Victory , SS Lane Victory , and SS Red Oak Victory . A steam turbine ship can be either direct propulsion (the turbines, equipped with
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#17327973075382088-430: A few further experiments until SS Aberdeen (1881) went into service on the route from Britain to Australia. Her triple expansion engine was designed by Dr A C Kirk, the engineer who had developed the machinery for Propontis . The difference was the use of two double ended Scotch type steel boilers, running at 125 pounds per square inch (860 kPa). These boilers had patent corrugated furnaces that overcame
2262-551: A few years, new installations were running at 200 pounds per square inch (1,400 kPa). The tramp steamers that operated at the end of the 1880s could sail at 9 knots (17 km/h; 10 mph) with a fuel consumption of 0.5 ounces (14 g) of coal per ton mile travelled. This level of efficiency meant that steamships could now operate as the primary method of maritime transport in the vast majority of commercial situations. In 1890, steamers constituted 57% of world's tonnage, and by World War I their share raised to 93%. By 1870
2436-476: A fleet of over a thousand Colonist cars , low-budget sleeper cars designed to transport immigrant families from eastern Canadian seaports to the west. During the first decade of the 20th century, the CPR continued to build more lines. In 1908, the CPR opened a line connecting Toronto with Sudbury . Several operational improvements were also made to the railway in Western Canada. On November 3, 1909,
2610-473: A given distance, but fewer firemen were needed to fuel the boilers, so crew costs and their accommodation space were reduced. Agamemnon was able to sail from London to China with a coaling stop at Mauritius on the outward and return journey, with a time on passage substantially less than the competing sailing vessels. Holt had already ordered two sister ships to Agamemnon by the time she had returned from her first trip to China in 1866, operating these ships in
2784-510: A head wind, most notably against the southwest monsoon when returning with a cargo of new tea. Though the auxiliary steamers persisted in competing in far eastern trade for a few years (and it was Erl King that carried the first cargo of tea through the Suez Canal ), they soon moved on to other routes. What was needed was a big improvement in fuel efficiency. While the boilers for steam engines on land were allowed to run at high pressures,
2958-573: A last spike at Feist Lake, near Vermilion Bay, Ontario , the line was turned over to the newly-minted private Canadian Pacific Railway company. In 1883, the first wheat shipment from Manitoba was transported over this line to the Lakehead (Fort William and Port Arthur) on Lake Superior. Macdonald would later return as prime minister and adopt a more aggressive construction policy; bonds were floated in London and called for tenders to complete sections of
3132-501: A mail car, one second-class coach, two immigrant sleepers, two first-class coaches, two sleeping cars and a diner (several dining cars were used throughout the journey, as they were removed from the train during the night, with another one added the next morning). By that time, however, the CPR had decided to move its western terminus from Port Moody to Granville , which was renamed "Vancouver" later that year. The first official train destined for Vancouver arrived on May 23, 1887, although
3306-453: A million troops and passengers and four million tons of cargo. Twenty seven survived and returned to CPR. CPR also helped the war effort with money and jobs. CPR made loans and guarantees to the Allies of some $ 100 million. As a lasting tribute, CPR commissioned three statues and 23 memorial tablets to commemorate the efforts of those who fought and those who died in the war. After the war,
3480-521: A mine shaft collapse destroyed a portion of the town of Worthington along with approximately 500 feet (150 m) of Canadian Pacific track, forcing the railway to permanently relocate its line around the crater left by the collapse as well as briefly rerouting its traffic along the Algoma Eastern line. Starting in the 1920s, efforts were made to build a modern highway connecting Sudbury with Sault Ste. Marie. This route had been surveyed along with
3654-502: A number of inventions such as the screw propeller , the compound engine , and the triple-expansion engine made trans-oceanic shipping on a large scale economically viable. In 1870 the White Star Line ’s RMS Oceanic set a new standard for ocean travel by having its first-class cabins amidships, with the added amenity of large portholes, electricity and running water. The size of ocean liners increased from 1880 to meet
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#17327973075383828-458: A particularly compact compound engine and taken great care with the hull design, producing a light, strong, easily driven hull. The efficiency of Holt's package of boiler pressure, compound engine and hull design gave a ship that could steam at 10 knots on 20 long tons of coal a day. This fuel consumption was a saving from between 23 and 14 long tons a day, compared to other contemporary steamers. Not only did less coal need to be carried to travel
4002-538: A port on the north shore of Lake Huron , and then continue on via rail. The latter would pass through the newly formed Algoma District , paralleling the historic voyageur route through the North Channel of Lake Huron and connecting a number of pre-existing points or transportation corridors with the east: Additionally, by passing largely to the north of the La Cloche Mountains , which divide
4176-523: A prefix designating their propeller configuration i.e. single, twin, triple-screw. Single-screw Steamship SS , Twin-Screw Steamship TSS , Triple-Screw Steamship TrSS . Steam turbine-driven ships had the prefix TS . In the UK the prefix RMS for Royal Mail Steamship overruled the screw configuration prefix. The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe
4350-474: A reduction gear, rotate directly the propellers), or turboelectric (the turbines rotate electric generators, which in turn feed electric motors operating the propellers). While steam turbine-driven merchant ships such as the Algol -class cargo ships (1972–1973), ALP Pacesetter-class container ships (1973–1974) and very large crude carriers were built until the 1970s, the use of steam for marine propulsion in
4524-432: A report two years later on March 8, 2017, citing drainage issues and rail joint defects as the cause of the derailment. On January 1, 2017, 13 cars carrying steel coil derailed near Blind River . No injuries were reported, and no hazardous materials were involved during the derailment. The line was closed due to the incident until January 5. Several locomotives lettered for affiliate Quebec-Gatineau Railway also populate
4698-426: A sailing vessel. The steam engine would only be used when conditions were unsuitable for sailing – in light or contrary winds. Some of this type (for instance Erl King ) were built with propellers that could be lifted clear of the water to reduce drag when under sail power alone. These ships struggled to be successful on the route to China, as the standing rigging required when sailing was a handicap when steaming into
4872-789: A series of different owners since being spun off of the Canadian Pacific in 1995. The first operator was the Canadian American Railroad a division of Iron Road Railways . In 2002 the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic took over operations after CDAC declared bankruptcy. The Central, Maine and Quebec Railway started operations in 2014 after the MMA declared bankruptcy due to the Lac-Mégantic derailment. On this new acquisition, CP CEO Keith Creel remarked that this gives CP
5046-869: A significant port on the Atlantic Ocean. The CPR acquired the Quebec Central Railway on December 14, 1912. During the late 19th century, the railway undertook an ambitious program of hotel construction, building Glacier House in Glacier National Park , Mount Stephen House at Field, British Columbia , the Château Frontenac in Quebec City and the Banff Springs Hotel . By then, the CPR had competition from three other transcontinental lines, all of them money-losers. In 1919, these lines were consolidated into
5220-511: A small brush fire had started from the derailment. The fire was later put out by the Sables-Spanish Rivers Fire Department. On April 14, 2014, three locomotives and one flatcar were derailed likely due to collapsing infrastructure at milepoint 30 (about 3 km from Nairn Centre ). There were no injuries; however, the spilled diesel from the locomotives required the issue of a drinking water advisory for
5394-501: A steel plate attached to the engine beds. Water at 200 psi was injected between these two surfaces to lubricate and separate them. This arrangement was not sufficient for higher engine powers and oil lubricated "collar" thrust bearings became standard from the early 1850s. This was superseded at the beginning of the 20th century by floating pad bearing which automatically built up wedges of oil which could withstand bearing pressures of 500 psi or more. Steam-powered ships were named with
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5568-617: A true coast-to-coast network across Canada and an increased presence in New England. On June 4, 2020; Canadian Pacific bought the Central Maine and Quebec. On March 21, 2021, CP announced that it was planning to purchase the Kansas City Southern Railway (KCS) for US$ 29 billion. The US Surface Transportation Board (STB) would first have to approve the purchase, which was expected to be completed by
5742-420: Is not correct to use "SS" for most modern vessels. As steamships were less dependent on wind patterns, new trade routes opened up. The steamship has been described as a "major driver of the first wave of trade globalization (1870–1913)" and contributor to "an increase in international trade that was unprecedented in human history". Steamships were preceded by smaller vessels, called steamboats , conceived in
5916-762: Is publicly traded on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CP. Its U.S. headquarters are in Minneapolis . As of March 30, 2023, the largest shareholder of Canadian Pacific stock exchange is TCI Fund Management Limited , a London-based hedge fund that owns 6% of the company. The creation of the Canadian Pacific Railway was undertaken as the National Dream by
6090-661: Is the Canadian ship SS Royal William in 1833. The British side-wheel paddle steamer SS Great Western was the first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings, starting in 1838. In 1836 Isambard Kingdom Brunel and a group of Bristol investors formed the Great Western Steamship Company to build a line of steamships for the Bristol-New York route. The idea of regular scheduled transatlantic service
6264-675: The 49th parallel and border tensions resulting from the Fenian raids , American companies such as the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad were pushing northward to connect Manitoba with the American Midwest and promoting cross-border trade along a north–south axis. One of the notable promoters of this effort was the Canadian-American railway industrialist James J. Hill , known as the "Empire Builder" and namesake of
6438-528: The Board of Trade (under the authority of the Merchant Shipping Act 1854 ) would not allow ships to exceed 20 or 25 pounds per square inch (140 or 170 kPa). Compound engines were a known source of improved efficiency – but generally not used at sea due to the low pressures available. Carnatic (1863) , a P&O ship, had a compound engine – and achieved better efficiency than other ships of
6612-543: The CN Newmarket Subdivision . Significantly, in 1883 and 1884 there had been a sea change at the CPR: an increasingly bitter James Hill resigned from the company, and became a major opponent of the company and its future president, William Cornelius Van Horne . On 1 May 1884, Worthington also resigned from the company after a disagreement with Van Horne and was replaced with Abbott as supervising engineer on
6786-655: The Canada-U.S. Free Trade Agreement of 1989, which liberalized trade between the two nations, the CPR's expansion continued during the early 1990s: CP Rail gained full control of the Soo Line in 1990, adding the "System" to the former's name, and bought the Delaware and Hudson Railway in 1991. These two acquisitions gave CP Rail routes to the major American cities of Chicago (via the Soo Line and Milwaukee Road as part of its historically logical route) and New York City (via
6960-556: The Canadian National Railway , or CN), the line was never used for through passenger services to Northwestern Ontario and Western Canada , as the CPR transcontinental mainline to the north was used instead. Passenger service was drastically cut in the 1960s and almost every remaining station was demolished by Canadian Pacific in the 1970s and 1980s, and the line never experienced the nationalization of passenger rail services under Via Rail starting in 1977. Toward
7134-458: The Cold War (eg. Russian aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov ), because of needs of high power and speed, although from 1970s they were mostly replaced by gas turbines . Large naval vessels and submarines continue to be operated with steam turbines, using nuclear reactors to boil the water. NS Savannah , was the first nuclear-powered cargo-passenger ship, and was built in the late 1950s as
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7308-818: The Conservative government of John A. Macdonald , together with mining magnate Alexander Tilloch Galt . As a condition for joining the Canadian Confederation , British Columbia had insisted on a transport link to the East, with the rest of the Confederation. In 1873, Macdonald, among other high-ranking politicians, bribed in the Pacific Scandal , granted contracts to the Canada Pacific Railway Company, which
7482-597: The Delaware and Hudson Railway in the northeastern United States. However, the new subsidiary, threatened with being sold off and free to innovate, quickly spun off money-losing track to short lines, instituted scheduled freight service, and produced an unexpected turn-around in profitability. On 1 January 2001 the StL&;H was formally amalgamated with the CP Rail system. In 2001, the CPR's parent company, Canadian Pacific Limited , spun off its five subsidiaries, including
7656-648: The East Coast to the West Coast of the United States began on 28 February 1849, with the arrival of SS California in San Francisco Bay . The California left New York Harbor on 6 October 1848, rounded Cape Horn at the tip of South America, and arrived at San Francisco, California, after a four-month and 21-day journey. The first steamship to operate on the Pacific Ocean was
7830-530: The Great Depression , a number of dairy farms in the area were permanently shut down and mining and lumber operations reduced to skeletons or mothballed entirely. This drastically reduced traffic along both lines, and Canadian Pacific bought the Algoma Eastern line from the financially distressed Lake Superior Corporation. Over the next several decades, the Algoma Eastern line and rolling stock were gradually integrated into Canadian Pacific's operations and
8004-661: The Hudson's Bay Company trading post at Whitefish Lake. This drew little attention at the time, as the Sudbury area was located well inland and composed of rough terrain, and was less desirable than locations such as Bruce Mines or in Michigan 's Copper Country . Within several years after the official discovery, however, mining activity had increased significantly in the Sudbury Basin , mostly by small companies which struggled with limitations in mining and smelting technology of
8178-581: The Kettle Valley Railway in British Columbia, was built in response to the booming mining and smelting economy in southern British Columbia, and the tendency of the local geography to encourage and enable easier access from neighbouring US states than from Vancouver or the rest of Canada, which was viewed to be as much of a threat to national security as it was to the province's control of its own resources. The local passenger service
8352-730: The Lethbridge Viaduct over the Oldman River valley at Lethbridge , Alberta, was opened. It is 1,624 metres (5,328 feet) long and, at its maximum, 96 metres (315 feet) high, making it one of the longest railway bridges in Canada. In 1916, the CPR replaced its line through Rogers Pass , which was prone to avalanches (the most serious of which killed 62 men in 1910) with the Connaught Tunnel , an eight-kilometre-long (5-mile) tunnel under Mount Macdonald that was, at
8526-594: The Mediterranean and then through the Red Sea . While this worked for passengers and some high value cargo, sail was still the only solution for virtually all trade between China and Western Europe or East Coast America. Most notable of these cargoes was tea , typically carried in clippers . Another partial solution was the Steam Auxiliary Ship – a vessel with a steam engine, but also rigged as
8700-670: The New Brunswick Railway in 1891 for 991 years, and built the International Railway of Maine , connecting Montreal with Saint John, New Brunswick , in 1889. The connection with Saint John on the Atlantic coast made the CPR the first truly transcontinental railway company in Canada and permitted trans-Atlantic cargo and passenger services to continue year-round when sea ice in the Gulf of St. Lawrence closed
8874-660: The Northern Railway of Canada was going through its own complex reorganization, which would result in the incorporation of the Northern, North-Western, and Sault Ste. Marie Railway , which was to reach Sault Ste. Marie via North Bay through an extension of the Northern's existing line, which terminated at Gravenhurst . Construction began within several years, but the project lagged, and the line only reached Callander , just south of North Bay in 1886. Financing issues for
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#17327973075389048-609: The Ontario Sault Ste. Marie Railway was incorporated in 1881, and a line was surveyed for it. The Midland Railway, however, was insolvent and involved in a set of complex structural maneuvers which would eventually result in its amalgamation with the Grand Trunk Railway in 1893, putting the Midland in a poor position for further construction and dooming the new line to being a paper railway . Also in 1881,
9222-619: The Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa & Occidental Railway from the Quebec government and by creating a new railway company, the Ontario and Quebec Railway (O&Q). It also launched a fleet of Great Lakes ships to link its terminals. Through the O&Q, the CPR had effected purchases and long-term leases of several railways, and built a line between Perth, Ontario , and Toronto (completed on May 5, 1884) to connect these acquisitions. The CPR obtained
9396-525: The Rocky Mountains via the Yellowhead Pass . However, a more southerly route across the arid Palliser's Triangle in Saskatchewan and via Kicking Horse Pass and down the Field Hill to the Rocky Mountain Trench was chosen. In 1881, construction progressed at a pace too slow for the railway's officials who, in 1882, hired the renowned railway executive William Cornelius Van Horne to oversee construction. Van Horne stated that he would have 800 km (500 mi) of main line built in 1882. Floods delayed
9570-508: The last spike was driven at Craigellachie, British Columbia . Four days earlier, the last spike of the Lake Superior section was driven in just west of Jackfish, Ontario . While the railway was completed four years after the original 1881 deadline, it was completed more than five years ahead of the new date of 1891 that Macdonald gave in 1881. In Eastern Canada, the CPR had created a network of lines reaching from Quebec City to St. Thomas, Ontario , by 1885 – mainly by buying
9744-696: The reciprocating steam engine , and was far easier to control. Diesel engines also required far less supervision and maintenance than steam engines, and as an internal combustion engine it did not need boilers or a water supply, therefore was more space efficient and cheaper to build. The Liberty ships were the last major steamship class equipped with reciprocating engines. The last Victory ships had already been equipped with marine diesels, and diesel engines superseded both steamers and windjammers soon after World War Two. Most steamers were used up to their maximum economical life span, and no commercial ocean-going steamers with reciprocating engines have been built since
9918-405: The steel industry , slab steel, paper , and miscellaneous goods are also carried. In 2008, the railway handled 16,000 carloads a year, though carloadings have decreased in subsequent years. The route has variable topography and parallels Ontario Highway 17 for much of its length. One of the terms of British Columbia entering into the Canadian Confederation in 1871 was the construction of
10092-450: The " Crow Rate " was permanently replaced by the Western Grain Transportation Act , which allowed the gradual increase of grain shipping prices. The Crowsnest Pass line opened on June 18, 1898, and followed a complicated route through the maze of valleys and passes in southern British Columbia, rejoining the original mainline at Hope after crossing the Cascade Mountains via Coquihalla Pass . The Southern Mainline, generally known as
10266-427: The 1950s, the railway introduced new innovations in passenger service. In 1955, it introduced The Canadian , a new luxury transcontinental train. However, in the 1960s, the company started to pull out of passenger services, ending services on many of its branch lines. It also discontinued its secondary transcontinental train The Dominion in 1966, and in 1970, unsuccessfully applied to discontinue The Canadian . For
10440-401: The 1960s. Most steamships today are powered by steam turbines . After the demonstration by British engineer Charles Parsons of his steam turbine-driven yacht, Turbinia , in 1897, the use of steam turbines for propulsion quickly spread. The Cunard RMS Mauretania , built in 1906 was one of the first ocean liners to use the steam turbine (with a late design change shortly before her keel
10614-414: The Algoma Eastern name was retired. Much of the Algoma Eastern line was abandoned, and remaining portions were incorporated into the CPR Algoma Branch, which by that point had been reorganized as the Thessalon and Webbwood Subdivisions of the CPR, but was still known less formally as the "Soo Line". The decline along the eastern portion of the line was exacerbated by the Worthington mine disaster in 1927, when
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#173279730753810788-422: The Atlantic Ocean on a scheduled liner voyage before she was converted to diesels in 1986. The last major passenger ship built with steam turbines was the Fairsky , launched in 1984, later Atlantic Star , reportedly sold to Turkish shipbreakers in 2013. Most luxury yachts at the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries were steam driven (see luxury yacht ; also Cox & King yachts ). Thomas Assheton Smith
10962-422: The Atlantic, around the southern tip of Africa, and across the Indian Ocean . Before 1866, no steamship could carry enough coal to make this voyage and have enough space left to carry a commercial cargo. A partial solution to this problem was adopted by the Peninsular and Oriental Steam Navigation Company (P&O), using an overland section between Alexandria and Suez , with connecting steamship routes along
11136-407: The Atlantic. Great Western was an iron-strapped, wooden, side-wheel paddle steamer, with four masts to hoist the auxiliary sails. The sails were not just to provide auxiliary propulsion, but also were used in rough seas to keep the ship on an even keel and ensure that both paddle wheels remained in the water, driving the ship in a straight line. The hull was built of oak by traditional methods. She
11310-464: The CPR Act of 1874, work began in 1875 on the Lake Superior to Manitoba section of the CPR. The ceremonial sod-turning at Westfort on June 1, 1875, was prominently reported in the June 10 edition of the Toronto Globe . It noted that a crowd of "upwards of 500 ladies and gentlemen" gathered to celebrate the event on the left bank of the Kaministiquia River in the District of Thunder Bay, about four miles upriver from Fort William. Once completed in 1882 with
11484-421: The CPR, into independent companies. In September 2007, CPR announced it was acquiring the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad from London-based Electra Private Equity . The merger was completed as of October 31, 2008. Canadian Pacific Railway Ltd. trains resumed regular operations on June 1, 2012, after a nine-day strike by some 4,800 locomotive engineers, conductors and traffic controllers who walked off
11658-436: The CPR, to action. During this time the railway land grants were formalized. The Great Depression , which lasted from 1929 until 1939, hit many companies heavily. While the CPR was affected, it was not affected to the extent of its rival CNR because it, unlike the CNR, was debt-free. The CPR scaled back on some of its passenger and freight services and stopped issuing dividends to its shareholders after 1932. Hard times led to
11832-496: The Canadian government to build the railway, the CPR was granted 100,000 square kilometres (25 million acres). Canadian Pacific then began an intense campaign to bring immigrants to Canada; its agents operated in many overseas locations, where immigrants were often sold a package that included passage on a CP ship, travel on a CP train and land sold by the CP railway. Land was priced at $ 2.50 an acre and up but required cultivation. To transport immigrants, Canadian Pacific developed
12006-611: The D&H). During the 1990s, both CP Rail and CN attempted unsuccessfully to buy out the eastern assets of the other, so as to permit further rationalization. In 1996, CP Rail moved its head office from Windsor Station in Montreal to Gulf Canada Square in Calgary and changed its name back to Canadian Pacific Railway. A new subsidiary company, the St. Lawrence and Hudson Railway , was created to operate its money-losing lines in eastern North America, covering Quebec , Southern and Eastern Ontario , trackage rights to Chicago, Illinois , (on Norfolk Southern lines from Detroit ) as well as
12180-420: The Federal government created Canadian National Railways (CNR, later CN) out of several bankrupt railways that fell into government hands during and after the war. CNR would become the main competitor to the CPR in Canada. In 1923, Henry Worth Thornton replaced David Blyth Hanna becoming the second president of the CNR, and his competition spurred Edward Wentworth Beatty , the first Canadian-born president of
12354-504: The Great Lakes region. The western Great Lakes were the epicentre of the Old Copper Complex as early as 4000 BCE, with evidence of indigenous copper mining on Isle Royale from around this time. Geophysically , the presence of magnetic anomalies around the Sudbury Basin had been noted by Alexander Murray in his 1847–48 surveys. As well, in the course of charting his north–south meridian , Albert Salter observed "severe compass needle deflections" about 5 kilometres (3.1 mi) north of
12528-755: The Kicking Horse River just after the Trans Canada Highway overpass. The three crew members on the lead locomotive were killed. The Canadian Pacific Police Service (CPPS) investigated the fatal derailment. It later came to light that, although Creel said that the RCMP "retain jurisdiction" over the investigation, the RCMP wrote that "it never had jurisdiction because the crash happened on CP property". On January 26, 2020, Canadian current affairs program The Fifth Estate broadcast an episode on
12702-527: The Liverpool to New York route. RMS Titanic was the largest steamship in the world when she sank in 1912; a subsequent major sinking of a steamer was that of the RMS ; Lusitania , as an act of World War I . Launched in 1938, RMS Queen Elizabeth was the largest passenger steamship ever built. Launched in 1969, Queen Elizabeth 2 (QE2) was the last passenger steamship to cross
12876-545: The Midwest, access to Sault Ste. Marie's industries, and the opportunity to open up the North Shore of Lake Huron to increased European settlement and natural resource extraction. Much like in other areas of Canada, townships were quickly surveyed and lots sold either to natural resource interests or to prospective settlers, including Québécois , Scots , and Finns . New or refounded settlements, concentrated heavily toward
13050-628: The Midwest. It was also initially the more practical, as the CPR was being faced with the challenge of transporting construction materials to the Lakehead to complete the line through the Prairies. This was done initially with steamships , which had already been operating on the Great Lakes for decades. By 1881, a line had been surveyed westward to Algoma Mills , where temporary port facilities were built out of expediency rather than using existing facilities at Sault Ste. Marie. Construction work on
13224-411: The Quebec government added the CPR, along with lessor World Fuel Services (WFS), to the list of corporate entities from which it seeks reimbursement for the environmental cleanup of the Lac-Mégantic derailment. On July 15, the press reported that CP would appeal the legal order. On October 12, 2014, it was reported that Canadian Pacific had tried to enter into a merger with American railway CSX , but
13398-538: The Spanish River near the town of Nairn , resulting in scores of deaths and going on record as one of the worst railway disasters in Canadian history. The competing Algoma Eastern Railway was built in 1914 by the Sault Ste. Marie-based Lake Superior Corporation , which served a more primarily industrial corridor largely north of the CPR line in the east, though it did operate some passenger services. During
13572-402: The United States. The railway was first built between eastern Canada and British Columbia between 1875 and 1885 (connecting with Ottawa Valley and Georgian Bay area lines built earlier), fulfilling a commitment extended to British Columbia when it entered Confederation in 1871; the CPR was Canada's first transcontinental railway . Primarily a freight railway, the CPR was for decades
13746-563: The Webbwood Sub at McKerrow. The CPR retains running rights over about 22-mile (35 km) of track at the east end of the Webbwood Subdivision, and the HCRY has running rights all the way into Sudbury. Coil steel manufactured by Algoma Steel in Sault Ste. Marie and freight from the Domtar paper mill at Espanola account for 80% of freight traffic, although pulpwood , chemicals used by
13920-578: The adoption of screw propulsion by the Royal Navy , in addition to her influence on commercial vessels. The first screw-driven propeller steamship introduced in America was on a ship built by Thomas Clyde in 1844 and many more ships and routes followed. The key innovation that made ocean-going steamers viable was the change from the paddle-wheel to the screw-propeller as the mechanism of propulsion. These steamships quickly became more popular, because
14094-538: The closure of the Huron Central was officially postponed pending the possibility of further bailouts from the provincial and federal governments. With no further government funds, G&W announced in September 2020 that the railway would be shut down on December 18, filing official notice to do so. In October, layoff notices were issued to all 43 railway employees, to take effect after the end of operations. It
14268-426: The commercial market has declined dramatically due to the development of more efficient diesel engines . One notable exception are LNG carriers which use boil-off gas from the cargo tanks as fuel. However, even there the development of dual-fuel engines has pushed steam turbines into a niche market with about 10% market share in newbuildings in 2013. Lately, there has been some development in hybrid power plants where
14442-458: The company could not use a voting trust to assume control of KCS, due to concerns about potentially reduced competition in the railroad industry. Steamship A steamship , often referred to as a steamer , is a type of steam-powered vessel , typically ocean-faring and seaworthy , that is propelled by one or more steam engines that typically move (turn) propellers or paddlewheels . The first steamships came into practical usage during
14616-545: The company owns the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad , a Hammond, Indiana -based terminal railroad along with Conrail Shared Assets Operations . CPR purchased the Kansas City Southern Railway in December 2021 for US$ 31 billion . On April 14, 2023, KCS became a wholly owned subsidiary of CPR, and both CPR and its subsidiaries began doing business under the name of its parent company, CPKC . The CPR
14790-658: The company. Construction was carried out in a specially adapted dry dock in Bristol , England. Brunel was given a chance to inspect John Laird 's 213-foot (65 m) (English) channel packet ship Rainbow —the largest iron- hulled ship then in service—in 1838, and was soon converted to iron-hulled technology. He scrapped his plans to build a wooden ship and persuaded the company directors to build an iron-hulled ship. Iron's advantages included being much cheaper than wood, not being subject to dry rot or woodworm , and its much greater structural strength. The practical limit on
14964-436: The competing problems of heat transfer and sufficient strength to deal with the boiler pressure. Aberdeen was a marked success, achieving in trials, at 1,800 indicated horsepower , a fuel consumption of 1.28 pounds (0.58 kg) of coal per indicated horsepower. This was a reduction in fuel consumption of about 60%, compared to a typical steamer built ten years earlier. In service, this translated into less than 40 tons of coal
15138-614: The controlling interests of the Toronto, Hamilton and Buffalo Railway (TH&B) from Conrail and molded it into the Canadian Pacific System, dissolving the TH&;B's name from the books in 1985. In 1987, most of CPR's trackage in the Great Lakes region, including much of the original Soo Line, were spun off into a new railway, the Wisconsin Central , which was subsequently purchased by CN . Influenced by
15312-617: The country. Additionally, 22 of the CPR's ships went to war, 12 of which were sunk. After the Second World War, the transportation industry in Canada changed. Where railways had previously provided almost universal freight and passenger services, cars, trucks and airplanes started to take traffic away from railways. This naturally helped the CPR's air and trucking operations, and the railway's freight operations continued to thrive hauling resource traffic and bulk commodities. However, passenger trains quickly became unprofitable. During
15486-559: The country. The CPR and the CNR shared the honours of pulling the royal train across the country, with the CPR undertaking the westbound journey from Quebec City to Vancouver. Later that year, the Second World War began. As it had done in World War I, the CPR devoted much of its resources to the war effort. It retooled its Angus Shops in Montreal to produce Valentine tanks and other armoured vehicles, and transported troops and resources across
15660-632: The creation of new political parties such as the Social Credit movement and the Cooperative Commonwealth Federation , as well as popular protest in the form of the On-to-Ottawa Trek . One highlight of the late 1930s, both for the railway and for Canada, was the visit of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth during their 1939 royal tour of Canada , the first time that the reigning monarch had visited
15834-604: The derailment, and the next day the Canadian Transportation Safety Board (TSB) called for the RCMP to investigate as lead investigator Don Crawford said, "There is enough to suspect there's negligence here and it needs to be investigated by the proper authority". On February 4, 2020, the TSB demoted its lead investigator in the crash probe after his superiors decided these comments were "completely inappropriate". The TSB stated that it "does not share
16008-708: The derailment. Part of the compromise was to accept GO Transit commuter rail service along the Galt Subdivision corridor up to Milton, Ontario . Limited trains ran along the Milton line on weekdays only. Expansions to Cambridge, Ontario may be coming in the future. In 1984, CP Rail commenced construction of the Mount Macdonald Tunnel to augment the Connaught Tunnel under the Selkirk Mountains . The first revenue train passed through
16182-541: The development of the river and canal steamboat, the first steamships began to cross the Atlantic Ocean . The first sea-going steamboat was Richard Wright's first steamboat Experiment , an ex-French lugger ; she steamed from Leeds to Yarmouth in July 1813. The first iron steamship to go to sea was the 116-ton Aaron Manby , built in 1821 by Aaron Manby at the Horseley Ironworks , and became
16356-408: The early 19th century; however, there were exceptions that came before. Steamships usually use the prefix designations of "PS" for paddle steamer or "SS" for screw steamer (using a propeller or screw). As paddle steamers became less common, "SS" is incorrectly assumed by many to stand for "steamship". Ships powered by internal combustion engines use a prefix such as "MV" for motor vessel , so it
16530-586: The east end of the line near Sudbury, sprung up along the line, including: In its first few decades, the line saw traffic primarily from the mining and logging industries, as well as local farmers in the Beaver Lake area exporting milk to dairies in Copper Cliff and Sudbury for processing. It also saw passenger traffic, including express trains connecting Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, and Toronto; notably, in 1910 an express train derailed while crossing
16704-515: The end of 2018, citing a lack of provincial funding. Temporary funding was secured, but in October 2019, G&W announced the line would close in early 2020. In early 2020, it was announced that G&W itself was being sold to Brookfield Infrastructure Partners and GIC Private Limited , the latter of which is the country of Singapore 's sovereign wealth fund. Not long after this, in February,
16878-605: The end of the 20th century, the line became almost exclusively an industrial freight railway , serving a handful of high-volume customers such as the Espanola pulp and paper mill, the Nairn lumber mill and Essar Steel Algoma in Sault Ste. Marie. With traffic declining, in 1997, Canadian Pacific leased the line to the Huron Central Railway, Inc., a subsidiary of Genesee & Wyoming . The railway had been asking
17052-479: The first half of the 18th century, with the first working steamboat and paddle steamer , the Pyroscaphe , from 1783. Once the technology of steam was mastered at this level, steam engines were mounted on larger, and eventually, ocean-going vessels. Becoming reliable, and propelled by screw rather than paddlewheels, the technology changed the design of ships for faster, more economic propulsion. Paddlewheels as
17226-552: The first iron-built vessel to put to sea when she crossed the English Channel in 1822, arriving in Paris on 22 June. She carried passengers and freight to Paris in 1822 at an average speed of 8 knots (9 mph, 14 km/h). The American ship SS Savannah first crossed the Atlantic Ocean arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819, although most of the voyage was actually made under sail. The first ship to make
17400-417: The following technological innovations. Steam engines had to be designed with the power delivered at the bottom of the machinery, to give direct drive to the propeller shaft . A paddle steamer's engines drive a shaft that is positioned above the waterline, with the cylinders positioned below the shaft. SS Great Britain used chain drive to transmit power from a paddler's engine to the propeller shaft –
17574-624: The goal of connecting Winnipeg with the Lake Superior Lakehead in Northwestern Ontario . Exploratory surveys had been conducted as early as 1871 along two prospective mainline routes connecting the Lakehead with the east: a direct inland route through the rugged terrain of the Canadian Shield (proposed by Sandford Fleming ), and a "water route" which would use steamships to connect the Lakehead with
17748-726: The government passed the Railway Relief Bill, providing a further $ 22.5 million in loans to the CPR. The bill received royal assent on March 6, 1884. In March 1885, the North-West Rebellion broke out in the District of Saskatchewan . Van Horne, in Ottawa at the time, suggested to the government that the CPR could transport troops to Qu'Appelle in the District of Assiniboia in 10 days. Some sections of track were incomplete or had not been used before, but
17922-647: The government-owned Canadian National Railways . During the First World War, CPR put the entire resources of the "world's greatest travel system" at the disposal of the British Empire , not only trains and tracks, but also its ships, shops, hotels, telegraphs and, above all, its people. Aiding the war effort meant transporting and billeting troops; building and supplying arms and munitions; arming, lending and selling ships. Fifty-two CPR ships were pressed into service during World War I, carrying more than
18096-524: The interior from the Lake Huron shoreline, the railway's route would pass through fertile lands with agricultural potential that were noted as early as the 1847 and 1848 surveys by the Scottish geologist and explorer Alexander Murray . Ultimately, Canadian Pacific would construct lines along both the northern inland and the southern lakeshore routes. At first, however, the company decided in favour of
18270-429: The job on May 23, stalling Canadian freight traffic and costing the economy an estimated CA$ 80 million ( US$ 77 million ). The strike ended with a government back-to-work bill forcing both sides to come to a binding agreement . On July 6, 2013, a unit train of crude oil which CP had subcontracted to short-line operator Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway derailed in Lac-Mégantic , killing 47. On August 14, 2013,
18444-516: The length of a wooden-hulled ship is about 300 feet, after which hogging —the flexing of the hull as waves pass beneath it—becomes too great. Iron hulls are far less subject to hogging, so that the potential size of an iron-hulled ship is much greater. In the spring of 1840 Brunel also had the opportunity to inspect SS Archimedes , the first screw-propelled steamship, completed only a few months before by F. P. Smith's Propeller Steamship Company. Brunel had been looking into methods of improving
18618-531: The line caused a public scandal, and the goal of reaching Sault Ste. Marie was abandoned. Instead, Nipissing Junction was created as the new terminus, joining it with the Canadian Pacific line just southeast of North Bay, and the whole line was renamed to the Northern and Pacific Junction Railway . The Northern Railway of Canada collapsed soon after, and it was merged into the Grand Trunk Railway, which had, through agents and proxies, been involved in
18792-597: The line had already been in use for three months. The CPR quickly became profitable, and all loans from the federal government were repaid years ahead of time. In 1888, a branch line was opened between Sudbury and Sault Ste. Marie where the CPR connected with the American railway system and its own steamships. That same year, work was started on a line from London, Ontario , to the Canada–US border at Windsor, Ontario . That line opened on June 12, 1890. The CPR also leased
18966-404: The main motive source became standard on these early vessels. It was an effective means of propulsion under ideal conditions but otherwise had serious drawbacks. The paddle-wheel performed best when it operated at a certain depth, however when the depth of the ship changed from added weight it further submerged the paddle wheel causing a substantial decrease in performance. Within a few decades of
19140-456: The middle of 2022. However, a competing cash and stock offer was later made by Canadian National Railway (CN) on April 20 at $ 33.7 billion. On 13 May, KCS announced that they planned to accept the merger offer from CN, but would give CP until May 21 to come up with a higher bid. On May 21, KCS and CN agreed to a merger. However, CN's merger attempt was blocked by a STB ruling in August that
19314-604: The modern-day Amtrak Empire Builder passenger train. Hill was the general manager of the St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad , and in 1880 became part of the Montreal-based five-man syndicate who were awarded the transcontinental railway contract by the Canadian federal government under John A. Macdonald 's Conservatives , and subsequently formed the Canadian Pacific Railway Company. Railway construction had already been ongoing at
19488-402: The needs of the human migration to the United States and Australia. RMS Umbria and her sister ship RMS Etruria were the last two Cunard liners of the period to be fitted with auxiliary sails. Both ships were built by John Elder & Co. of Glasgow, Scotland, in 1884. They were record breakers by the standards of the time, and were the largest liners then in service, plying
19662-492: The new Multimark (which, when mirrored by an adjacent "multi-mark" creates a diamond appearance on a globe) that was used – with a different colour background – for each of its operations. On November 10, 1979, a derailment of a hazardous materials train in Mississauga, Ontario , led to the evacuation of 200,000 people; there were no fatalities. Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion threatened to sue Canadian Pacific for
19836-577: The newly formed Blue Funnel Line . His competitors rapidly copied his ideas for their own new ships. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 gave a distance saving of about 3,250 nautical miles (6,020 km; 3,740 mi) on the route from China to London. The canal was not a practical option for sailing vessels, as using a tug was difficult and expensive – so this distance saving was not available to them. Steamships immediately made use of this new waterway and found themselves in high demand in China for
20010-460: The next eight years, it continued to apply to discontinue the service, and service on The Canadian declined markedly. On October 29, 1978, CP Rail transferred its passenger services to Via Rail , a new federal Crown corporation that is responsible for managing all intercity passenger service formerly handled by both CP Rail and CN. Via eventually took almost all of its passenger trains, including The Canadian , off CP's lines. In 1968, as part of
20184-549: The only practical means of long-distance passenger transport in most regions of Canada and was instrumental in the colonization and development of Western Canada. The CPR became one of the largest and most powerful companies in Canada, a position it held as late as 1975. The company acquired two American lines in 2009: the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad (DM&E) and the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad (IC&E). Also,
20358-419: The operating costs of steamships were still too high in certain trades, so sail was the only commercial option in many situations. The compound engine, where steam was expanded twice in two separate cylinders, still had inefficiencies. The solution was the triple expansion engine, in which steam was successively expanded in a high pressure, intermediate pressure and a low pressure cylinder. The theory of this
20532-587: The operations of both it and the Midland Railway for some time. The Grand Trunk, seeing Canadian Pacific as its new rival following its own acquisition of the Great Western Railway in 1882, acquired numerous railways around this time and "depleted its treasury" in an unsuccessful bid to keep Canadian Pacific out of Ontario. Ultimately, the line as it was built would later come under Canadian National ownership and most recently forms part of
20706-456: The paddle steamer Beaver , launched in 1836 to service Hudson's Bay Company trading posts between Puget Sound Washington and Alaska . The most testing route for steam was from Britain or the East Coast of the U.S. to the Far East . The distance from either is roughly the same, between 14,000 to 15,000 nautical miles (26,000 to 28,000 km; 16,000 to 17,000 mi), traveling down
20880-466: The parish of Sainte-Anne-des-Pins . Worthington also placed a junction and construction camp at a place nearby, which he named Sudbury. The CPR was not the only company pursuing a link between Southern and Eastern Ontario and Sault Ste. Marie. Another interested party was the Midland Railway of Canada , a conglomerate formed out of smaller lines around Central Ontario . A shell company named
21054-453: The performance of Great Britain ' s paddlewheels, and took an immediate interest in the new technology, and Smith, sensing a prestigious new customer for his own company, agreed to lend Archimedes to Brunel for extended tests. Over several months, Smith and Brunel tested a number of different propellers on Archimedes in order to find the most efficient design, a four-bladed model submitted by Smith. When launched in 1843, Great Britain
21228-512: The port of Montreal during the winter months. By 1896, competition with the Great Northern Railway for traffic in southern British Columbia forced the CPR to construct a second line across the province, south of the original line. Van Horne, now president of the CPR, asked for government aid, and the government agreed to provide around $ 3.6 million to construct a railway from Lethbridge, Alberta , through Crowsnest Pass to
21402-450: The propeller's efficiency was consistent regardless of the depth at which it operated. Being smaller in size and mass and being completely submerged, it was also far less prone to damage. James Watt of Scotland is widely given credit for applying the first screw propeller to an engine at his Birmingham works, an early steam engine , beginning the use of a hydrodynamic screw for propulsion. The development of screw propulsion relied on
21576-465: The provincial and federal governments to support the company via Transport Canada's National Trade Corridors Fund. Another threatened shutdown was averted by $ 21 million provided by the provincial and federal governments in January 2023, each matching a $ 10.5 million commitment by G&W towards infrastructure improvements. Both the provincial and federal governments had previously requested a plan from
21750-467: The provincial government since 2006 for funding to improve track conditions, and in April 2009, Genesee & Wyoming warned that, due to the ever-deteriorating track and the resulting increased operational costs, it would be forced to shut down the railway, unless the provincial government would provide money with which to undertake the necessary upgrades. On June 15, 2009, Genesee & Wyoming announced that
21924-531: The rail line in the late 19th century, and was displayed on some maps as the "Trunk Road", which a number of pioneer roads and industrial access roads connected onto. It also incorporated portions of old trails and portage routes, such as the one running parallel to the Serpent River. This road was largely unusable in certain seasons, and for decades the only way to cross the Spanish River aside from
22098-745: The rail line open. A temporary agreement was reached which provided $ 15.9 million to cover operating expenses and maintain service until August 15, 2010. On September 24, 2010, $ 33 million in funding was announced for the rehabilitation of the railway, with the provincial and federal governments each contributing $ 15 million and Genesee & Wyoming making up the remaining $ 3 million. Work began on August 10, 2011, with contracts going to Swift Contractors for tie replacement and track surfacing and M'Anishnabek Industries (a joint venture between B&M Metals of Sudbury and Serpent River First Nation ) for ballast distribution. Work continues through summer 2012. In May 2018, G&W announced that operations would cease by
22272-578: The railroad for business development to justify their funding. The investments are intended to support running heavier trains on the line. The most notable derailment on the line, the 1910 Spanish River derailment , occurred when the line was still operated by Canadian Pacific. A westbound Soo Express passenger train derailed while crossing the Spanish River bridge near Nairn, causing the deaths of 44 passengers and crew. On June 12, 2006, 15 cars carrying generators derailed near Webbwood . No injuries were reported, and no dangerous materials were involved, but
22446-511: The railway in British Columbia. American contractor Andrew Onderdonk was selected, and his men began construction on May 15, 1880. In October 1880, a new consortium signed a contract with the Macdonald government, agreeing to build the railway for $ 25 million in credit and 25 million acres (100,000 km ) of land. In addition, the government defrayed surveying costs and exempted the railway from property taxes for 20 years. A beaver
22620-475: The railway's operations would be discontinued by October and that 45 people would be laid off. Due to the economic downturn , it suffered a significant reduction in carload volume (down by almost 50% from the previous year) which rendered the line insolvent. This announcement, however, triggered a series of negotiations between the HCRY, the City of Sault Ste. Marie , Essar Steel Algoma , and Domtar in order to keep
22794-541: The remaining eastern section of the mainline. In preparation for the opening of the new terminus at Algoma Mills, three steamships, the Alberta , Algoma , and Athabaska , had been built in 1883 by Charles Connell and Company of Glasgow . These ships began service in May 1884 from Owen Sound to Port Arthur , pending the opening of the line. By the end of 1884, however, this new mainline section had been suddenly downgraded to
22968-419: The result of a late design change to propeller propulsion. An effective stern tube and associated bearings were required. The stern tube contains the propeller shaft where it passes through the hull structure. It should provide an unrestricted delivery of power by the propeller shaft. The combination of hull and stern tube must avoid any flexing that will bend the shaft or cause uneven wear. The inboard end has
23142-484: The roster. Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway ( French : Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique ) ( reporting marks CP , CPAA , MILW , SOO ), also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), was a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited , known until 2023 as Canadian Pacific Railway Limited , which began operations as legal owner in
23316-467: The same time, the CPR acquired the financially struggling Minneapolis, St. Paul and Sault Ste. Marie Railroad (MStP&SSM) through intermediaries. The MStP&SSM line had been extended up to Sault Ste. Marie, Michigan , and it and the CPR had jointly funded the construction of the Sault Ste. Marie International Railroad Bridge in 1887. This would provide a connection point with American railways in
23490-404: The section began in 1882 under the supervision of CPR engineer Harry Abbott, but went slowly as crews carved a route through the rugged La Cloche Mountains ; by the end of 1882, all 80 miles (130 km) had been graded, but only 5 miles (8 km) of track had been laid. It was completed in 1884, but was considered below standard by the CPR, with bridges constructed from local timbers rather than
23664-560: The site of what would become the Murray Mine . Organized copper mining had occurred on the north shore since at least as early as the foundation of Bruce Mines in 1846. The use of copper by First Nations people had been documented by Samuel de Champlain in the early 17th century, and there is significant archaeological evidence of copper working by the Mississippian people among others, who largely sourced their copper from
23838-414: The small community. The locomotives that derailed were QGRY 800, QGRY 3800, and HCRY 3011. QGRY 800 made it over the washout and sat upright with its rear truck off the tracks, QGRY 3800 ended up off the track and rolled onto its side, while HCRY 3011 remained upright, but sitting on its fuel tank at a 90° angle to the track with its rear truck hanging by the electrical cables. On June 13, 2015, 15 cars left
24012-476: The south shore of Kootenay Lake , in exchange for the CPR agreeing to reduce freight rates in perpetuity for key commodities shipped in Western Canada. The controversial Crowsnest Pass Agreement effectively locked the eastbound rate on grain products and westbound rates on certain "settlers' effects" at the 1897 level. Although temporarily suspended during the First World War , it was not until 1983 that
24186-421: The southern route for its mainline, where the water route through Lake Superior was set to begin, and which was more accessible through existing means of transportation. This was supported by James Hill , as a line through Sault Ste. Marie into the United States would benefit his St Paul, Minneapolis and Manitoba Railroad , and open up the possibility of a joint Canadian-American transcontinental mainline through
24360-521: The start of the 1870 tea season. The steamships were able to obtain a much higher rate of freight than sailing ships and the insurance premium for the cargo was less. So successful were the steamers using the Suez Canal that, in 1871, 45 were built in Clyde shipyards alone for Far Eastern trade. Throughout the 1870s, compound-engined steamships and sailing vessels coexisted in an economic equilibrium:
24534-680: The start of the construction season, but over 672 km (418 mi) of main line, as well as sidings and branch lines, were built that year. The Thunder Bay branch (west from Fort William ) was completed in June 1882 by the Department of Railways and Canals and turned over to the company in May 1883. By the end of 1883, the railway had reached the Rocky Mountains, just 8 km (5.0 mi) east of Kicking Horse Pass. The treacherous 190 km (120 mi) of railway west of Fort William
24708-506: The steel necessary to support heavy freight. This was intended to be the temporary western terminus of CPR line from Montreal , but construction on the eastern portion of the line north of Lake Nipissing had proceeded extremely slowly under engineer James Worthington, and only reached the Vermilion River by the end of 1883, in the process passing through a concentrated pocket of Jesuit missionary activity which would coalesce into
24882-561: The time of its opening, the longest railway tunnel in the Western Hemisphere . On January 21, 1910, a passenger train derailed on the CPR line at the Spanish River bridge at Nairn, Ontario (near Sudbury ), killing at least 43. On January 3, 1912, the CPR acquired the Dominion Atlantic Railway , a railway that ran in western Nova Scotia . This acquisition gave the CPR a connection to Halifax ,
25056-460: The time under the previous Liberal government of Alexander Mackenzie , managed by the federal Department of Public Works and led by the renowned Scottish-Canadian engineer Sandford Fleming , who was dismissed in 1880 and replaced by Collingwood Schreiber as chief engineer on the project. Under Fleming's direction, the symbolic "first spike" had been driven at Fort William (now part of Thunder Bay ) in 1875, and construction had commenced with
25230-612: The time. Her boilers ran at 26 pounds per square inch (180 kPa) but relied on a substantial amount of superheat . Alfred Holt , who had entered marine engineering and ship management after an apprenticeship in railway engineering, experimented with boiler pressures of 60 pounds per square inch (410 kPa) in Cleator . Holt was able to persuade the Board of Trade to allow these boiler pressures and, in partnership with his brother Phillip launched Agamemnon in 1865. Holt had designed
25404-427: The time. Nevertheless, this development would ultimately shift the economic focus of the region away from Sault Ste. Marie and toward Sudbury. With the new mainline still under construction, the Algoma Branch went disused until 1888, when it was brought up to standard and finally extended to Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario , with a symbolic "meeting in the middle" of eastbound and westbound trains at Whitefish in 1889. Around
25578-558: The title of the first ship to make the transatlantic trip substantially under steam power is the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on the way out and more on the return. Another claimant
25752-541: The tracks near Fairbanks Provincial Park in Worthington , which spilled steel coil . Ontario Transportation Minister Steven Del Duca requested a meeting with the federal Minister of Transport Lisa Raitt about rail safety in Ontario following the derailment. On November 1, 2015, 13 cars jumped the tracks near Spanish . There were no dangerous goods and no injuries. The Transportation Safety Board of Canada released
25926-421: The train bridge was a local ferry service run out of Nairn . This situation would change during the Great Depression as government public works funding was made available for unemployed labourers to work in road construction, and it became easier for modern automobiles to travel through the area, especially after the highway was paved in 1931. This route became known as the "Soo Highway" and for several decades it
26100-408: The transatlantic route, acting as a model for all following Atlantic paddle-steamers. The Cunard Line 's RMS Britannia began her first regular passenger and cargo service by a steamship in 1840, sailing from Liverpool to Boston. In 1845 the revolutionary SS Great Britain , also built by Brunel, became the first iron-hulled screw-driven ship to cross the Atlantic. SS Great Britain
26274-535: The transatlantic trip substantially under steam power may have been the British-built Dutch-owned Curaçao , a wooden 438-ton vessel built in Dover and powered by two 50 hp engines, which crossed from Hellevoetsluis , near Rotterdam on 26 April 1827 to Paramaribo , Surinam on 24 May, spending 11 days under steam on the way out and more on the return. Another claimant is the Canadian ship SS Royal William in 1833. The first steamship purpose-built for regularly scheduled trans-Atlantic crossings
26448-458: The trip to Winnipeg was made in nine days and the rebellion quickly suppressed. Controversially, the government subsequently reorganized the CPR's debt and provided a further $ 5 million loan. This money was desperately needed by the CPR. Even with Van Horne's support with moving troops to Qu'Appelle, the government still delayed in giving its support to CPR, due to Macdonald pressuring George Stephen for additional benefits. On November 7, 1885,
26622-481: The tunnel in 1988. At 14.7 km (nine miles), it is the longest tunnel in the Americas. During the 1980s, the Soo Line Railroad , in which CP Rail still owned a controlling interest, underwent several changes. It acquired the Minneapolis, Northfield and Southern Railway in 1982. Then on February 21, 1985, the Soo Line obtained a controlling interest in the bankrupt Milwaukee Road , merging it into its system on January 1, 1986. Also in 1980, Canadian Pacific bought out
26796-488: The view of the lead safety investigator". The CPPS say they did a thorough investigation into the actions of the crew, which is now closed and resulted in no charges, while the Alberta Federation of Labour and the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference called for an independent police probe. On November 20, 2019, it was announced that Canadian Pacific would purchase the Central Maine and Quebec Railway from Fortress Transportation and Infrastructure Investors . The line has had
26970-503: Was an English aristocrat who forwarded the design of the steam yacht in conjunction with the Scottish marine engineer Robert Napier . By World War II , steamers still constituted 73% of world's tonnage, and similar percentage remained in early 1950s. The decline of the steamship began soon thereafter. Many had been lost in the war, and marine diesel engines had finally matured as an economical and viable alternative to steam power. The diesel engine had far better thermal efficiency than
27144-433: Was announced on December 11, 2020, that due to ongoing negotiations with the Canadian federal government and the province of Ontario, that the deadline to close the line would be extended to June 30, 2021. All present employees with lay off notices, have had their notices rescinded for the time being. G&W rescinded its plans to end its operation of the Huron Central Railway in the end of May 2021, following agreements with
27318-433: Was by far the largest vessel afloat. Brunel's last major project, SS Great Eastern , was built in 1854–1857 with the intent of linking Great Britain with India, via the Cape of Good Hope , without any coaling stops. This ship was arguably more revolutionary than her predecessors. She was one of the first ships to be built with a double hull with watertight compartments and was the first liner to have four funnels. She
27492-409: Was chosen as the railway's logo in honour of Donald Smith, 1st Baron Strathcona and Mount Royal , who had risen from factor to governor of the Hudson's Bay Company over a lengthy career in the beaver fur trade. Building the railway took over four years. The Canadian Pacific Railway began its westward expansion from Bonfield, Ontario , where the first spike was driven into a sunken railway tie. That
27666-650: Was completed by Purcell & Company, headed by "Canada's wealthiest and greatest railroad contractor," industrialist Hugh Ryan . Many thousands of navvies worked on the railway. Many were European immigrants. An unknown number of Stoney Nakoda also assisted in track laying and construction work in the Kicking Horse Pass region. In British Columbia, government contractors eventually hired 17,000 workers from China, known as " coolies ". After 2 + 1 ⁄ 2 months of hard labour, they could net as little as $ 16 ($ 485 in 2023 adjusted for inflation) Chinese labourers in British Columbia made only between 75 cents and $ 1.25
27840-402: Was established in the 1850s by John Elder , but it was clear that triple expansion engines needed steam at, by the standards of the day, very high pressures. The existing boiler technology could not deliver this. Wrought iron could not provide the strength for the higher pressures. Steel became available in larger quantities in the 1870s, but the quality was variable. The overall design of boilers
28014-504: Was improved in the early 1860s, with the Scotch-type boilers – but at that date these still ran at the lower pressures that were then current. The first ship fitted with triple expansion engines was Propontis (launched in 1874). She was fitted with boilers that operated at 150 pounds per square inch (1,000 kPa) – but these had technical problems and had to be replaced with ones that ran at 90 pounds per square inch (620 kPa). This substantially degraded performance. There were
28188-405: Was laid down) and was soon followed by all subsequent liners. Most larger warships of the world's navies were propelled by steam turbines burning bunker fuel in both World Wars, apart from obsolete ships with reciprocating machines from the turn of the century, and rare cases of usage of diesel engines in larger warships. Steam turbines burning fuel remained in warship construction until the end of
28362-416: Was re-routed to this new southerly line, which connected numerous emergent small cities across the region. Independent railways and subsidiaries that were eventually merged into the CPR in connection with this route were the Shuswap and Okanagan Railway , the Kaslo and Slocan Railway , the Columbia and Kootenay Railway , the Columbia and Western Railway and various others. Under the initial contract with
28536-410: Was solved with a lignum vitae water-lubricated bearing, patented in 1858. This became standard practice and is in use today. Since the motive power of screw propulsion is delivered along the shaft, a thrust bearing is needed to transfer that load to the hull without excessive friction. SS Great Britain had a 2 ft diameter gunmetal plate on the forward end of the shaft which bore against
28710-433: Was the American ship SS Savannah , though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship, with the first half of the journey making use of the steam engine. Savannah left the port of Savannah, Georgia , US, on 22 May 1819, arriving in Liverpool , England, on 20 June 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours). A claimant to
28884-401: Was the British side-wheel paddle steamer SS Great Western built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel in 1838, which inaugurated the era of the trans-Atlantic ocean liner . SS Archimedes , built in Britain in 1839 by Francis Pettit Smith , was the world's first screw propeller -driven steamship for open water seagoing. She had considerable influence on ship development, encouraging
29058-456: Was the biggest liner throughout the rest of the 19th century with a gross tonnage of almost 20,000 tons and had a passenger-carrying capacity of thousands. The ship was ahead of her time and went through a turbulent history, never being put to her intended use. The first transatlantic steamer built of steel was SS Buenos Ayrean , built by Allan Line Royal Mail Steamers and entering service in 1879. The first regular steamship service from
29232-434: Was the first ship to combine these two innovations. After the initial success of its first liner, SS Great Western of 1838, the Great Western Steamship Company assembled the same engineering team that had collaborated so successfully before. This time however, Brunel, whose reputation was at its height, came to assert overall control over design of the ship—a state of affairs that would have far-reaching consequences for
29406-453: Was the largest steamship for one year, until the British and American's British Queen went into service. Built at the shipyard of Patterson & Mercer in Bristol, Great Western was launched on 19 July 1837 and then sailed to London, where she was fitted with two side-lever steam engines from the firm of Maudslay, Sons & Field , producing 750 indicated horsepower between them. The ship proved satisfactory in service and initiated
29580-427: Was the point where the Canada Central Railway (CCR) extension ended. The CCR started in Brockville and extended to Pembroke. It then followed a westward route along the Ottawa River and continued to Mattawa at the confluence of the Mattawa and Ottawa rivers. It then proceeded to Bonfield. It was presumed that the railway would travel through the rich "fertile belt" of the North Saskatchewan River Valley and cross
29754-412: Was the primary highway connecting Sudbury with Sault Ste. Marie. During the 1950s, however, the Ontario provincial government began work on a new route running largely to the south of the Soo Highway, which would become Ontario Highway 17 . This permanently shifted traffic away from communities near the CPR line like Turbine, High Falls, and Worthington, which quickly became ghost towns after experiencing
29928-525: Was under discussion by several groups and the rival British and American Steam Navigation Company was established at the same time. Great Western's design sparked controversy from critics that contended that she was too big. The principle that Brunel understood was that the carrying capacity of a hull increases as the cube of its dimensions, while water resistance only increases as the square of its dimensions. This meant that large ships were more fuel efficient, something very important for long voyages across
30102-418: Was unrelated to the current company, as opposed to the Inter-Ocean Railway Company, which was thought to have connections to the Northern Pacific Railway Company in the United States. After this scandal, the Conservatives were removed from power, and Alexander Mackenzie , the new Liberal prime minister, ordered construction of the railway under the supervision of the Department of Public Works. Enabled by
30276-426: Was unsuccessful. In 2015–16 Canadian Pacific sought to merge with American railway Norfolk Southern . and wanted to have a shareholder vote on it. CP ultimately terminated its efforts to merge on April 11, 2016. On February 4, 2019, a loaded grain train ran away from the siding at Partridge just above the Upper Spiral Tunnel in Kicking Horse Pass . The 112-car grain train with three locomotives derailed into
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