Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

GRAND TRUNK PACIFIC RAILWAY (GTP) was incorporated by the Grand Trunk Rwy in 1903 to build a rail line across western Canada. The line was to run from Winnipeg via Edmonton, the YELLOWHEAD PASS and PRINCE GEORGE to PRINCE RUPERT, the western terminus. Construction began at the eastern end in 1905 and at the Prince Rupert end in 1908. At any one time as many as 6,000 men worked on the line as it made its way across the mountainous Interior. One of 2 transcontinental lines built during an orgy of pre-war railway construction, it was plagued by financial difficulties and construction delays and was completed largely through the determination of C.M. Hays, president of Grand Trunk Rwy, who died on the Titanic before the project was finished. The last spike was finally driven 7 Apr 1914 at Finmoore, near FORT FRASER, 665 km east of Prince Rupert. Within a few years the line faced bankruptcy; the federal government nationalized it in 1919, joining it with the rival CANADIAN NORTHERN RWY line to form CNR.
Reading: Frank Leonard, A Thousand Blunders: The Grand Trunk Pacific Railway and Northern British Columbia, 1996.