Canadian Northern Railway instance of railway company
The Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) was a historic Canadian transcontinental railway. At its 1923 merger into the Canadian National Railway (reporting mark CN), the CNoR owned a main line between Quebec City and Vancouver via Ottawa, Winnipeg, and Edmonton.Manitoba beginnings
The network had its start in the independent branchlines that were being constructed in Manitoba in the 1880s and 1890s as a response to the monopoly exercised by Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR). Many such lines were built with the sponsorship of the provincial government, which sought to subsidize local competition to the federally subsidized CPR; however, significant competition was also provided by the encroaching Northern Pacific Railway (NPR) from the south.
Two branchline contractors, Sir William Mackenzie and Sir Donald Mann, took control of the bankrupt Lake Manitoba Railway and Canal Company in January, 1896. The partners expanded their enterprise, in 1897, by building further north into Manitoba's Interlake district as well as east and west of Winnipeg. They also began building and buying lines south to connect with the U.S. border at Pembina, North Dakota, and east to Ontario.Financial trouble and nationalization
By 1914, with the company's financial predicament threatening the solvency of its major financier, the Bank of Commerce, the CNoR appealed for government help. The last spike of the CNoR transcontinental railway was driven January 23, 1915, at Basque, British Columbia, with Montreal-Vancouver freight and passenger services commencing six months later, and providing a rail network in Nova Scotia, Southern Ontario, Minnesota, and on Vancouver Island. Between 1915 and 1918, CNoR tried desperately to increase profits, but CPR garnered the majority of wartime traffic. The company was also saddled with ongoing construction costs associated with the Mount Royal Tunnel project.
CNoR was heavily indebted to banks and governments, and its profitable branchlines in the prairie provinces — "Canada's breadbasket" — would not generate enough revenue to cover construction costs in other areas. Unable to meet its debts, the company became desperate for financial aid. In 1917, the federal government effectively took control of the company. As a condition for further funding, the government became the majority shareholder. On September 6, 1918, the directors, Mackenzie and Mann, resigned, replaced by a government-appointed board. Subsequently, CNoR executive David Blyth Hanna and his team managed not only CNoR operations but also the federally owned Canadian Government Railways (CGR). On December 20, 1918, a Privy Council order directed CNoR and CGR to be managed under the name Canadian National Railway (CNR) as a means to simplify funding and operations, but CNoR and CGR would not formally merge and cease corporate existence until January 20, 1923, the date Parliament passed the final act to incorporate CNR.Significant portions of the old CNoR system survive under CN (as the CNR has been known since 1960); for example:
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