Intercolonial Railway

The Intercolonial Railway was Canada's first national railway. It was called The Peoples' Railway. One of the conditions of Confederation was that the Federal Government would complete a railway between the Province of Canada (now Ontario and Quebec) and the Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. This was accomplished by organizing the Intercolonial Railway. As a first step the provincially owned railways in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick were taken over. Construction of interconnecting lines began shortly after Confederation. The engineer in chief was the noted Canadian civil engineer Sir Sanford Fleming. The completed line was opened for traffic on July 1st, 1875. In 1919 the Intercolonial became part of the publicly owned Canadian National Railway. The historic Intercolonial route is for the most part CN's main line in the Maritimes.