International Railway of Maine - Winter Alternative To Montreal

Winter Alternative To Montreal

The CPR completed its route from Montreal, Quebec to Vancouver, British Columbia in 1885. In the decades prior to the use of ice breaking ships in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and St. Lawrence River, the port of Montreal was closed from December to May, limiting any advantage that the railway might have over its competitors.

CPR's primary Canadian competitor, the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR), managed to avoid the winter ice problems in Montreal by using the ice-free port of Portland, Maine, accessed by a route constructed by the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad which the GTR had purchased in the mid-1850s.

The Delaware and Hudson Railway ran a feeder route down the valleys of Lake Champlain and the Hudson River to New York City. The Maine Central Railroad operated an arduous route over the White Mountains from St. Johnsbury, Vermont to Portland.

Looking 350 miles directly east from Montreal however, CPR surveyors saw the Canadian port of Saint John, New Brunswick, was underutilized (dwarfed by the growth of Halifax, Nova Scotia); and Saint John was accessible by a route across northern Maine which was less mountainous than other options for reaching the Atlantic coast.