The Railway Guarantee Act [1] was introduced in the Parliament of the Province of Canada by Finance Minister Francis Hincks, who was also the President of the Great Western Railway of Canada. The Act encountered little opposition during the course of its passage, despite the prevailing depression. [2]
It empowered the Government to guarantee the interest on loans to be raised by any railway chartered by the Legislature for the construction of any line at least 75 miles long within the Province, provided that:
The Province could demand further conditions with respect to a specific guarantee. [4]
Provision was also made for financial support to be given to plans being discussed for the construction of the future Intercolonial Railway. [5]
In 1851, access to guarantees was restricted to the Main Trunk Line (later to be called Grand Trunk Railway), together with ones already granted to the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, the Great Western Railway and the Ontario, Simcoe and Huron Railway. [6]
Railway Mania was an instance of a stock market bubble in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland in the 1840s. It followed a common pattern: as the price of railway shares increased, speculators invested more money, which further increased the price of railway shares, until the share price collapsed. The mania reached its zenith in 1846, when 272 Acts of Parliament setting up new railway companies were passed, with the proposed routes totalling 9,500 miles (15,300 km). About a third of the railways authorised were never built—the companies either collapsed due to poor financial planning, were bought out by larger competitors before they could build their line, or turned out to be fraudulent enterprises to channel investors' money into other businesses.
The Beeching cuts was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: The Reshaping of British Railways (1963) and The Development of the Major Railway Trunk Routes (1965), written by Richard Beeching and published by the British Railways Board.
BC Rail is a railway in the Canadian province of British Columbia.
Sir Francis Hincks, was a Canadian businessman, politician, and British colonial administrator. Of Irish descent, he was the Co-Premier of the Province of Canada (1851-1854), Governor of Barbados (1856-1862), Governor of British Guiana (1862-1869) and Canadian Minister of Finance (1869-1873).
Sir Kazimierz Stanisław Gzowski,, was an engineer best known for his work on a wide variety of Canadian railways as well as work on the Welland Canal. He also served as acting Lieutenant Governor of Ontario from 1896 to 1897.
The Grand Trunk Railway was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The railway was operated from headquarters in Montreal, Quebec, with corporate headquarters in London, England. It cost an estimated $160 million to build. The Grand Trunk, its subsidiaries, and the Canadian Government Railways were precursors of today's Canadian National Railways.
Clergy Reserves were tracts of land in Upper Canada and Lower Canada reserved for the support of "Protestant clergy" by the Constitutional Act of 1791. One-seventh of all surveyed Crown lands were set aside, totalling 2,395,687 acres (9,695 km2) and 934,052 acres (3,780 km2) respectively for each Province, and provision was made to dedicate some of those reserved lands as glebe land in support of any parsonage or rectory that may be established by the Church of England. The provincial legislatures could vary or repeal these provisions, but royal assent could not be given prior to such passed bills having been laid before both houses of the British Parliament for at least thirty days.
Canada has a large and well-developed railway system that today primarily transports freight. There are two major publicly traded transcontinental freight railway systems, Canadian National and Canadian Pacific. Nationwide passenger services are provided by the federal crown corporation Via Rail. Three Canadian cities have commuter train services: in the Montreal area by Exo, in the Toronto area by GO Transit, and in the Vancouver area by West Coast Express. These cities and several others are also served by light rail or metro systems. Only one (Toronto) has an extensive streetcar (tram) system. Smaller railways such as Ontario Northland Railway also run passenger trains to remote rural areas. The Rocky Mountaineer and Royal Canadian Pacific provide luxury rail tours for viewing scenery in the Canadian Rockies as well as other mountainous areas of British Columbia and Alberta.
The history of rail transport in Canada began in the early 19th century. The Canadian railway system saw several expansion "booms" throughout history, as well as a major change from broad to standard gauge which occurred in the 1870s. An initially disconnected system was gradually integrated with the American railway network, as Canadian and American railway companies built lines and bought smaller companies in each other's country. The Intercolonial Railway, a product of Canadian Confederation, was Canada's first major experiment in railway nationalization, and following Confederation, several transcontinental railways were built.
The Northern Railway of Canada was a railway in the province of Ontario, Canada. It was the first steam railway to enter service in what was then known as Upper Canada. It was eventually acquired by the Grand Trunk Railway, and is therefore a predecessor to the modern Canadian National Railway (CNR). Several sections of the line are still used by CNR and GO Transit.
Section 3 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms is a section that constitutionally guarantees Canadian citizens the democratic right to vote in a general federal or provincial election and the right to be eligible for membership in the House of Commons or of a provincial legislative assembly, subject to the requirements of Section 1 of the Charter. Federal judges, prisoners and those in mental institutions have gained the franchise as a result of this provision, whereas the restriction on minors voting was found to be permissible due to section 1.
The Canada Southern Railway, also known as CSR, was a railway in southwestern Ontario, Canada, founded on February 28, 1868 as the Erie and Niagara Extension Railway. Its name was changed to Canada Southern Railway on December 24, 1869. The 1868 Act specified that it was to be constructed at a broad gauge of 5 ft 6 in, but that requirement was repealed in the 1869 Act, thus allowing construction at the standard gauge of 4 ft 8+1⁄2 in.
John George Bowes was a railway promoter and politician in the Province of Canada. He was also a member of the Orange Order in Canada.
The Toronto, Grey and Bruce Railway was chartered in 1868 to build a narrow-gauge railway from Toronto to Grey and Bruce Counties in Ontario, Canada.
The Toronto and Nipissing Railway, T&N, was the first public narrow-gauge railway in North America. It chartered in 1868 to build from Toronto to Lake Nipissing in Ontario, Canada, via York, Ontario, and Victoria Counties. At Nipissing it would meet the transcontinental lines of the Canadian Pacific Railway, providing a valuable link to Toronto. It opened in 1871, with service between Scarborough and Uxbridge. By December 1872 it was extended to Coboconk, but financial difficulties led to plans of the line being built further abandoned at this point. The railway merged with the Midland Railway of Canada in 1882.
The Cockermouth & Workington Railway was an English railway company which built and operated a railway between the Cumberland towns of Workington and Cockermouth. The railway opened for service in 1847, and ran from the Whitehaven Junction Railway station at Workington to a station at Cockermouth near the bridge over the Derwent. A single-tracked line of eight and a half miles length, its revenue came largely from the transport of coal from the pits of the lower Derwent valley to the port at Workington for shipment by sea. The Marron extension of the Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway and the Derwent Branch of the Maryport and Carlisle Railway were both constructed to link with the C&WR and together give an alternative route for the northward movement of haematite ore from the Cumberland ore-field. The completion of the Cockermouth, Keswick and Penrith Railway made the C&WR part of a continuous through route between South Durham and the Cumberland orefield. These developments both improved the potential profitability of the C&WR, and made control of it important to bigger companies wishing to maximise the iron-ore traffic over their lines: the C&WR was absorbed by the London and North Western Railway in 1866.
The Whitehaven, Cleator and Egremont Railway was an English railway company which built and operated a standard gauge railway in Cumberland, England intended to open up the hematite orefield to the south-east of Whitehaven. It opened for goods traffic in 1855 and for passenger traffic in 1857.
The Alberta and Great Waterways Railway Scandal was a political scandal in Alberta, Canada in 1910, which forced the resignation of Liberal premier Alexander Cameron Rutherford. Rutherford and his government were accused of giving loan guarantees to private interests for the construction of the Alberta and Great Waterways (A&GW) Railway that substantially exceeded the cost of construction, and which paid interest considerably above the market rate. They were also accused of exercising insufficient oversight over the railway's operations.
United States v. Indianapolis & St. Louis Railroad Co., 113 U.S. 711 (1885), regarded a suit that was brought to foreclose mortgages given to secure bonds issued by the Indianapolis and St. Louis Railroad Company. A final decree of foreclosure having been passed, the mortgaged property was sold, and the sale was confirmed by the court. The United States intervened by petition, and asked that certain sums, alleged to be due to the government on account of taxes, be first paid out of the proceeds.
The Credit Valley Railway was a railway located in Ontario, Canada from Toronto to St. Thomas. Chartered in 1871 by Ontario railway magnate George Laidlaw, it operated as an independent company until 1883 when it was leased by the Ontario and Quebec Railway, a Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) operating company building a network of lines in southern Ontario.
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