Canadian and US railways

The most famous Canadian photo is of The Last Spike on the Canadian Pacific Railway at Craigellachie, British Columbia. That’s because it was the CPR that created Canada as a country from sea to sea. Without the Railway, BC would probably have joined the US.

The first American transcontinental railroad, Union Pacific, was completed 16 years earlier in a country that had existed for almost a century; not to build it but hold it together in the Civil War. UP relied on three separate lines to reach the Pacific.

But even to say that the Railway built Canada is an understatement. Achieving Canada’s motto “Dominion from sea to sea” was a byproduct. The real purpose of the CPR was global trade: connecting Europe and Asia through North America.

The steel from Québec to Vancouver was simply the land link of the Northwest Passage seagoing explorers had sought for four centuries. Tea, silks and other commodities could be loaded onto Canadian Pacific “Empress” steamers for a nine day voyage across the Pacific, five days cross country by rail and another six by steamer to the ports of Europe.

American railroads did not have this capability. None extended initially from sea to sea. None had steamships on both oceans. Earth’s curvature favoured Canada whose railways were closer to the great circle route. Even silks for American east coast ports were often shipped from the orient through Canada because of the faster connection.

US entrepreneurs were quick to seize the Canadian advantage. American railroader William Cornelius Van Horne came to Canada as CPR’s first General Manager, to build what was then the longest rail line in the world. It was he who placed the orders for the first CP steamships, beginning with the Empress of India.

Another US rail baron, Charles Melville Hays, came to Canada to build the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway 20 years later. By locating his western terminus at Prince Rupert, 400 miles north of Vancouver and two days closer to the orient by sea, he planned to trump Van Horne and undercut the CPR. Before his line was done, Hays went down on Titanic.

Though it was Canadian railways that had this global outlook—long before the word “globalization” entered our vocabulary—they were built by American knowhow using American technology. But it took a Sri Lanka born Scot to put this advantage into words.

John Murray Gibbon came to Canada in 1913 as CPR’s General Publicity Agent. It was he who coined the slogans “World’s Greatest Transportation System” and “Canadian Pacific Spans the World” to describe a reality that was more than clever advertising copy.

An American poster of the same era, at California’s State Railroad Museum, Sacramento, shows a contrasting view of the industry: A globe is filled largely by the lower 48 states. Tiny strips of blue—mini Atlantic and Pacific Oceans—are on the periphery. The focus is on the US land mass with rail lines crisscrossing the map.

A Gibbon-commissioned poster put Canada at the centre of the globe. But though central, is only a part of the picture. The greater part is taken up by lines radiating outward across the oceans to other continents, showing Canada as a trans-shipper in international trade.