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St Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, the world's first international railway, began service and was completed and inaugurated on 18 July 1853.

During the summer of 1885 the railway was constructed over the pass at great expense. Over 6.4 km of snowsheds (31) were built to protect trains, trackage and workmen from AVALANCHES (the area receives up to 15 m of snow each winter).

​The Lachine Canal passes through the southwestern part of the island of Montréal, from the Old Port to the borough of Lachine, where it flows into Lake Saint-Louis.

Streetcars began operation in Canada during the era of horse-powered local transportation, expanded rapidly with electrification, shrank with a public policy switch in favour of rubber-tired vehicles, and recently re-emerged as light rail transit.

Numerous tragedies have unfolded on Canadian roads and highways, the deadliest being a bus crash that killed 44 people in Quebec in 1997. Despite the death toll in such headline-grabbing disasters, Canada’s motor vehicle fatality and injury rates are steadily declining, thanks to engineering improvements in vehicles, and the increasing promotion and awareness of safe driving practices.

The Native People’s Caravan was a cross-country mobile protest that took place in 1974. Its main purpose was to raise awareness about the poor living conditions and discrimination experienced by Indigenous peoples in Canada. It travelled from Vancouver to Ottawa, where the subsequent occupation of a vacant warehouse on Victoria Island, near Parliament Hill, extended into 1975. The caravan brought various Indigenous groups together in protest of broken treaties, as well as a lack of government-supported education, housing and health care. As a result, meetings between Cabinet ministers and Indigenous leaders became more frequent. The protest is remembered as an important turning point in Indigenous activism in Canada.

Portage is a way by land around an interruption in a water route. Until the early 19th century most inhabitants of what is now Canada travelled mainly by water. Alexander Mackenzie and Simon Fraser demonstrated that it is possible, by portaging 100 times, to canoe from the St Lawrence to the Arctic or Pacific oceans.

The Toronto subway is part of a larger public transportation network, including streetcars, buses and light rapid transit, run by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC). It opened on 30 March 1954, making it Canada’s first subway. Since then, it has grown from a single, 12-station line running 7.4 km beneath Yonge Street to a four-line system encompassing 75 stations over 76.5 km. In 2017, the TTC recorded 213 million passenger trips on the Toronto subway.

CTrain is a light rail transit system in Calgary, Alberta. It is operated by Calgary Transit, a public transit service owned by the City of Calgary and operated through its Transportation Department. Service began on the initial downtown transit corridor and south line in 1981. It expanded to northeast Calgary in 1985, to the University of Calgary in the city’s northwest in 1987 and to the city’s west side in 2012. Most of its route and stations are at surface level. Calgary Transit operates the CTrain in conjunction with an extensive network of bus routes. Through equivalency purchases of wind-generated electricity, it has been entirely wind-powered since 2001. Its two separate lines comprise 45 stations, 118.1 km of track, and an average daily ridership of 312,300 (2018).

The Confederation Bridge is the longest bridge in the world crossing ice-covered water. The toll bridge spans a 12.9 km stretch of the Northumberland Strait connecting Borden-Carleton, Prince Edward Island, to Cape Jourimain, New Brunswick. Although the bridge would provide a faster and more reliable link to the mainland, the decision to proceed sparked heated debate on the Island. The $840-million bridge opened on 31 May 1997.

The Last Spike was the final and ceremonial railway spike driven into the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) track by company director Donald Smith on the morning of 7 November 1885. The ceremony marked the completion of the transcontinental CPR and was a muted affair at which a group of company officials and labourers gathered at Craigellachie near Eagle Pass in the interior of British Columbia. One of about 30 million iron spikes used in the construction of the line, the Last Spike came to symbolize more than the completion of a railway. Contemporaries and historians have viewed the Last Spike — as well as the iconic photographs of the event — as a moment when national unity was realized.

The SkyTrain is the rapid transit rail system serving Metro Vancouver, British Columbia. It uses mostly Advanced Light Rapid Transit (ALRT) technology, an automated rail system that operates mainly on a raised guideway, although some sections run underground or at street level. Regular service began 3 January 1986. The SkyTrain’s opening coincided with Expo 86, the world’s fair hosted by Vancouver as part of its 100th anniversary celebrations. The system is run by TransLink, the provincial transit agency for the South Coast of British Columbia. It was the world’s first driverless urban rail system. Now, it is one of the longest fully automated rapid transit systems in the world. The SkyTrain has three lines connecting 53 stations in seven municipalities. In 2018, it had more than 495,000 boardings per weekday, on average.

This text is from the free Toronto in Time app, which was created by The Canadian Encyclopedia and is available from the App Store and the Google Play store. Visit its companion website, which is linked below, to explore all the features of the app online.

This text is from the free Toronto in Time app, which was created by The Canadian Encyclopedia. The app is available from the App Store and the Google Play store. Visit its companion website, which is linked below, to explore all the features of the app online.

This text is from the free Toronto in Time app, which was created by The Canadian Encyclopedia and is available from the App Store and the Google Play store. Visit its companion website, which is linked below, to explore all the features of the app online.

This text is from the free Toronto in Time app, which was created by The Canadian Encyclopedia. The app is available from the App Store and the Google Play store. Visit its companion website, which is linked below, to explore all the features of the app online.