Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-11-18
GRAND TRUNK RAILWAY
Canada New Line Across the
Continent.
FROM OCEAN TO OCEAN
IT WILL BE CONSTRUCTED BY THE
GOVERNMENT.
How the Road Climbs the Rockies-An
Estimate as to It's Cost-Trade
With the Orient.
Copyright, 1905, by Frank C. Carpenter,

Copyright 1905 by Frank G. Carpenter)
Montreal, 1905.
have Just had long talk with Mr.,
FRANK w. Morse the vice president and
general manager of the new trunk line
which the government of Canada is build
Ing from ocean to ocean. 1 say the gov
eminent, for although the road is being
engineered under the Grand Trunk Pacific
railway management, and although it will
really belong to that company, it Is being
built on government guarantees, and the
eastern half of it by government engineers
and on government contracts.
1t is the biggest single job any govern
ment has ever undertaken, with perhaps
the exception of the Trans Siberian rail-
way and the Panama canal. It's building
will be as difficult as that of the Trans
Siberian, and it will cost S123, zoo, 600 or
more than half as much as the Panama
canal.
Transport yourself in your Imagination
back to the time when the United States
had 100000 people. We had about 3.00O,-
600, l believe when Jefferson was Presi-
dent. Think of the period when most of our
citizens were along the Atlantic seaboard
and south of Lakes Erie and Ontario and
suppose that we then had determined to
build an iron track through the wilderness
from Boston to San Francisco, and thence
north to Seattle. That is somewhat like
what this little six million nation Is I'M
dertaking now. 1t is surveying new
line of railroad 5000 miles long, which
shall connect Halifax, Nova Scotia, with
Port Simpson, on the Pacific ocean, not
far from the lower end of Alaska, about
800 miles north of Puget Sound, and per-
haps half that distance south of Sitka, In
Alaska. The line everywhere runs sew
eral hundred miles north of the American
boundary. In the Rockies 1t is about 300
miles north. 1t goes most of the way
through q new and unsettled country, and
for q thousand miles or so through lands
so suited for farming that Mr.. Morse tells
me they will soon be as thicklly populated
as Iowa or Nebraska
Thousands Already at Work.
This railroad is not mere possibility
a scheme mapped out upon paper. 1t has
been authorized by the Canadian parlia-
ment; $50, 600 worth of Grand Trunk
Pacific bonds, guaranteed by the govern
ment have been issued, and they were
subscribed for ten times over. The money
is at the call of the managers, and IT is
being put into the work as rapidly as
possible. Already 275 miles of road are
under construction. Two thousand men
are at work laying the rails between
Winnipeg and Edmonton, and by TINS time
next year there will be an army of labor
ers pushing the construction all along the
line.
eminent contract provides that it shall be
as good as the line OF the Grand Trunk be-
tween Toronto and Montreal, and that Is a S
good as any road on the continent. the
Trans Siberian was made with rails which
were far too light for the traffic, and the
whole road must now be relaid So Prince
Hilkoff, the Russian secretary of railroads,
told me when / talked with him about that
line just before the war with Japan. The
nrtp q
fifty-siX- pound rails; that is, with rails
which weighed fifty-six pounds to the yard.
This has all been changed, and the road
now has the heavy rails and all the I'M
provements of the New York Central or the
Pennsylvania. The Grand Trunk Pacific Is
being laid with rails which weigh eighty
pounds to the yard, and its grades will be
the least. so Mr.. Morse says. of any trans
continental line. The road Will be COM
pleted in 1911.
How Canada Builds Railroads.
Before l tell you the story of the road,
let me give you a thumb-nail sketch of It's
manager 1t will show you the kind of
men who are moving things in Canada TO-
day. The vice president and manager CT
this great enterprise is about eight years
younger than President Roosevelt. He is
about as tall as our President. ana not
quite so heavy. He looks younger than he
really is and every molecule of his anat-
omy seems to be fed with red young blood.
Like the greatest of Canada's railroad men,
he is American born and American bred.
He came from Lafayette, Ind; was edu-
Gated as mechanical engineer and had
his training the Wabash and other of
our systems before he took charge OF the
engineering department of the Grand
Trunk. He came to the Grand Trunk
through his friendship for Charles NJ. Hays,
its president, with whom he has been
closely associated for may years Mr.
Morse has n bi0 head q SmOOfh fac
and bright, clear blue eye. He talks well,
and is enthusiastic over the Grand Trunk
Pacific and its possibilities.
1 asked him to tell me something OF the
railway in Its relations to the government.
Said he:
1.-THE road has two divisions, an eastern
and western division. The eastern divi-
sion runs from the Atlantic ocean to Win
nipeg. 1t is eighteen hundred miles long
and it will be constructed by the Canadian
government. The western division runs
from Winnipeg to the Pacific ocean. l. is
also eighteen hundred miles long. It Is to
be built by the Grand Trunk Pacific Com
pany.
when the Canadian government has
completed the eastern division of the road,
by its contract with us 1t is bound to lease
1t to the Grand Trunk Pacific for fifty
years. For the first seven years We lay
nothing but the working expenses and for
forty-three years thereafter We annually
pay 3 per cent on the actual cost of con-
struction AS to the western division, that
will be built with our own money but the
government guarantees our bonds to the
extent of $4,000 per mile when the road
crosses the prairies. and to three-fours tbs of
the actual cost Of construction when it
goes over the mountains"
A Grain Chute to the Great Lakes.
But is there no land grant with the rail-
road. Mr.. Morse?''
Not on the main line. We have a branch
going down through New Ontario to Port
Arthur This II known a. the Lake SUI