Canada has a unique connection to the railway. In 1867, during the Canadian Confederation, the former Crown Colony of British Columbia made its membership contingent upon the construction of a transcontinental railway. In a very literal sense, the railways — in this case, Canadian Pacific, completed in 1885 — made the country. In 1967, to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the country, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation commissioned Gordon Lightfoot to write and perform a song, and his composition, perhaps unsurprisingly, was called the “Canadian Railroad Trilogy.” Even today, the $10 bill carries on its back an image of a train, VIA Rail’s Canadian, a national symbol. Put simply, the railway is the Canadian origin story.
The country’s railways dominated commercial culture for far longer than they did in the U.S., and to a far greater extent. Well into the late 20th century, it was possible to cross the Atlantic, stay in a hotel, ride in a sleeping car, board a ferry, and even fly in a plane, all of which belonged to CP. In many ways, the sprawling transportation system once exemplified Canadian culture — international in attitude, global in reach, and with a railway at its center.
There’s also an everyday side to the centrality of the Canadian railway. Canadian National, assembled from financially struggling companies in the early 20th century, offered a slightly more downbeat and everyday service but, like CP, stretched from coast to coast, serving countless small towns alongside the big cities. Smaller companies, some private, some state-subsidized, pushed iron rails into the remote landscape in search of natural resources, and in service of settlement and population growth. Some of the most remarkable examples are not from the 19th century, but from a hundred years later — examples such as Pacific Great Eastern (later BC Rail), which pushed branches into the far reaches of northern British Columbia throughout the 1960s and 1970s, chasing minerals, petroleum, and timber traffic. Wherever you went in Canada, there might not be a road or a highway to get you there, but there was almost always, almost certainly, a train.
In more recent decades, the centrality of the railway to Canadian life has faded somewhat. Passenger service was nationalized in 1978 under VIA, with frequency reductions as duplicative services were eliminated. Two daily transcontinental trains became one, then none, when, in 1990, VIA cut service on The Canadian to tri-weekly in summers and bi-weekly in slower months. On smaller and shorter routes, many subsidized local services have been reduced. It is no longer possible to ride RDCs from Victoria 225 miles north to Courtenay on Vancouver Island. It is no longer possible to buy a train ticket to Cape Breton Island. Overall, journey times have gotten longer and ticket prices higher. As in the U.S., for many Canadians, getting around the country means a plane or a car, not a coach seat in a streamliner.
Still, Canadians remain almost a generation closer than Americans to a time when daily life centered on the railways. As a result, Canada seems far more appreciative of its rail heritage. From the restoration of CP 2860, the so-called Royal Hudson, during the 1970s to the more recent restorations of CP 2816 earlier this century, and the in-process work on Canadian National 6060, a semi-streamlined 4-8-2, the country has a long history of succeeding with audacious restoration projects. Perhaps the nearness of the railway era is more palpable to the north, perhaps the cultural memory of the railways means that these projects aren’t just a trip down memory lane, but a reminder of what it means to be a Canadian at all. Regardless of why, our world is the richer for it.
—Alexander Benjamin Craghead is a transportation historian, photographer, artist, and author.
