Growth
of Canadian Railways
 The table below shows the pace at which railways were constructed and used in Canada. It took 15 years from 1845 when the first railway line in Canada was built to get over the 2,000 mile mark in 1860. It took another 15 years to 1875 to get the mileage over 4,000 miles. By 1890 railway fever had caught the country and railway mileage had almost doubled to 13,151 miles in operation.
Railway mileage hit its peak in 1930 where it remained relatively constant at about 43,000 miles until 1960 when mileage started to decrease with the abandonment of branch lines. Excluding the war years of 1914-18 and 1939-45, passenger travel hit a peak of 51 million passengers in 1920 and continued to decline to present day levels. Most of the present-day passenger miles are on commuter lines operated for local governments. Freight tonnage has continually increased. However, since 1965, more of Canada's freight has been shipped by other modes of transport such as trucks so that the railways' share of total shipping has decreased. The advent of "just-in-time" delivery in all sectors of the economy has further eroded the dominant position that railways once held in the transportation business. What has changed dramatically has been the number of locomotives on Canadian railway rosters. From just under 500 locomotives in 1870, the total hit a high of 6,030 in 1920 - all steam locomotives. The number declined to 3,319 in 1969 - all diesel locomotives. As the horsepower of diesels has increased, the number of locomotives continues to fall. |
