Once the longest railway system on Earth, headquartered in Toronto
The Railways That Built Toronto
Two rival 19th-century railway companies turned Toronto into central Canada's transport hub — one of them briefly ran the longest railway system in the world.
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Our history guide mentions railways as one driver of Toronto's 19th-century growth. Here's the fuller version — two competing companies whose rivalry, in a real sense, built the transportation backbone the modern city still runs on.
The Grand Trunk Railway (founded 1852)
Incorporated in 1852 under Sir Francis Hincks to connect Toronto and Montreal, the Grand Trunk Railway became the dominant railway in what's now Ontario and Quebec through the second half of the 19th century. By Confederation in 1867, it had grown into the longest railway system in the world, at just over 2,000 kilometres — an almost unbelievable claim for a country as young as Canada was at the time.
A fierce rivalry with Canadian Pacific
As the Canadian Pacific Railway expanded east from its transcontinental mandate, the two companies became direct competitors across southern Ontario through the late 19th and early 20th centuries — a rivalry serious enough that it took a formal 1896 agreement for the Grand Trunk to grant CP running rights over its own tracks.
What's left of it today
The Grand Trunk was eventually nationalized and folded into the Canadian National Railway — the same "CN" behind the CN Tower, originally built as a communications and railway-lands project. Union Station itself, opened in 1927, was a joint venture between the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific — physical proof of two rival companies eventually agreeing, at least, to share one very grand building.
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Sources
- The Canadian Encyclopedia — Grand Trunk Railway of Canada
- Toronto Railway Historical Association — Grand Trunk Railway