The Railways Resemble Each Other In Their
Ambitious Extensions.
The Canadian Pacific Railway, from Quebec to Port
Moody, is above 3,000 miles in length, but the total mileage of the
Company is already 4,600 miles, and no one knows where it is to stop,
while Messrs.
Baring and Glyn will, and can, raise money from English
people; the Union Pacific possesses 4,500 miles in the United States;
the Southern Pacific nearly 5,000; and the newest of the three, the
Northern Pacific, has about 3,000 miles, and is "marching on" to a
junction with Grand Trunk extensions at the southern end of Lake
Superior, in order to complete a second Atlantic and Pacific route,
through favoured Canada. Each of these great lines has found the
necessity of supplementing the through, with as much local traffic, as
it can command. Some of this is new, such as the coal traffic from Sir
Alexander Galt's mines, situated on a branch line of 110 miles, running
out of the Canadian Pacific at Dunmore, and the mineral traffic in the
territory of Wyoming on the Union Pacific. But, again, some of it is
the result of competition. Let us hope that the development of both
Canada and the United States may quickly give trade enough for all. It
seems to me, however, that the Ocean to Ocean traffic, alone, cannot,
at present at least, find a good return for so many railways.
Canada has been unusually generous to the promoters of the Canadian
Pacific Railway.
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