CANADIAN GRAND TRUNK.

Sun (Christchurch), Volume I, Issue 116, 22 June 1914, Page 5

CANADIAN GRAND TRUNK.

▲ RAILWAY ROMANCE. The last span of rail of the Grand Trunk Pacific line has just been '' spiked,'' and with it is completed one of the most remarkable railway enterprises. Beginning at Halifax (Nova Scotia), the line passes through New Brunswick, Quebec, Ontario, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Alberta, and British Columbia, terminating at Prince Rupert on the Pacific Coast.

The line is some 3,650 miles long, and some 1200 miles of branch line have been built, bringing the total mileage to nearly 5000. Many more branches will be added to the system. Shortened by a Day.

The new line will shorten, by at least a day, the journey from Europe to China or Japan. The route from Prince Rupert to Yokohama is 500 miles shorter than that from Vancouver, and 1500 miles less-than the trans-Pacific journey, from San Francisco.

Two hundred steel bridges have been erected in the 1804 miles between Monckton and Winnipeg, and these, if placed end to end, would total 11 miles. For this work an aggregate of 61,000 tons of steel was used, at a cost of about £1,200,000, exclusive of the St. Lawrence -bridge. This latter structure is designed to have the longest span in the world. Story of Romance. In the railroad's construction there has been many a chapter of romance. The surveying parties practically had to act as explorers in the interior of Quebec and Ontario, and their work was attended with considerable risk. The surveyors had to proceed from point to point by canoes, which often had to be portaged across miles of difficult country. In winter an elaborate service of dog trains was started, and these transported provisions to caches,-whence the isolated little bands of workers drew their supplies. Time after time the surveyors had mad races for life, being smoked out by bush fires, which rage with fuiy in this territory.