National Transcontinental Railway

The National Transcontinental Railway ( NTR ) was a state-owned railway company in Canada. It was founded on 24 October 1903 to build a transcontinental railway line from Moncton to Winnipeg, where the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, founded in the same year should be followed towards the Pacific. Construction began in 1906 and could be completed by the Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River in Quebec City in November 1913. 1915 also took the GTPR to Prince Rupert on the Pacific coast on their operation. After some repair work, the National Transcontinental Railway from Moncton to Winnipeg was officially opened on 1 June 1915. However, the Quebec Bridge went on 3 October 1919 in operation.

The route went from Moncton via Edmundston, Quebec City, Amos and Cochrane ( Ontario) to Winnipeg. The end of the track in Moncton was located about 1.2 kilometers from the Intercolonial Station. This 1.2 km stretch were shared. The railway was however of the branch just under 20 kilometers next to the Intercolonial mainline. Since the quality of the tracks of the NTR had a very high standard, the Intercolonial already decided a few months after the opening of NTR decommission parallel route and instead the idea to use NTR. Only three kilometers in Moncton remained.

The Canadian government leased the railway to the Grand Trunk Railway, which was also the parent company of GTPR. Soon, however, the GTR could not pay the rent fees and the government transferred the management of the Intercolonial Railway. On August 1, 1914 this, the NTR and other railway companies went up in the Canadian Government Railways, which were converted the 1918 in the Canadian National Railways.

Because of their alignment away from the densely populated areas of the route could never yield much profit. The section from Pelletier to Quebec City in 1976 was decommissioned after a 45 km long new line of Pelletier had been built at the former Intercolonial mainline. Ended in 1986 the train service between Nakina (Ontario) and Calstock (Ontario) and 1997 between Cochrane ( Ontario) and La Sarre ( Québec). The intermediate section Calstock - Cochrane was sold to the Ontario Northland Railway in 1993.