In 1883, the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railroad and Steamboat Company (QLSRSC) commenced building a line from Regina towards Prince Albert but it had financial problems and by 1886 had completed only 25
In 1883, the Qu'Appelle, Long Lake and Saskatchewan Railroad and Steamboat Company (QLSRSC) commenced building a line from Regina towards Prince Albert but it had financial problems and by 1886 had completed only 25 miles of track. James Ross, who had been in charge of much of the construction of the CPR line through the Rockies and Selkirks, formed a company with Herbert Holt, William Mackenzie and Donald Mann and they completed the line to Prince Albert. In 1889, the line was leased to the CPR but it was not very profitable and in 1906, Mackenzie and Mann rolled it into their Canadian Northern Railway.
The team of Ross, Holt, Mackenzie and Mann formed the Calgary and Edmonton Railway Company (C&ER) in April 1890 and on May 16, 1890 were authorized by the federal government to construct two branch lines “from Calgary to a point at or near Edmonton... a distance of about 190 miles, and... from Calgary to a point on the international boundary between Canada and the U.S.A. about 150 miles.”1 The railway was also given the right to extend towards the Peace River area but this was not exercised. To facilitate the construction, the company was awarded 6,400 acres of land for every mile of track constructed. Although it was a nominally independent company, the act gave the C&ER the right to lease or sell the line to the CPR. The relationship between the CPR and Ross’s team was then close, and at the 1890 Shareholders' Meeting, the CPR’s president, W.C. Van Horne, referred to the QLSRSC and the C&ER as being “of special importance to your company, from the fact that they will make accessible large areas of your lands now too far away from railways to be available.”2 The relationship between the C&ER and the CPR proved most beneficial to the CPR.
This was the time of company directors who were involved directly in the organization’s operations and Ross looked after the company’s financing, Holt served as the Superintendent of Construction, Mann was in charge of line grading and Mackenzie supplied timber. Surveys for the route north from Calgary began before the act was proclaimed and the line to Red Deer was surveyed in 18 days. No major bridges other than those across the Bow and Red Deer rivers were required. The formal commencement of construction took place in Calgary on July 21, 1890 when the Lieutenant Governor of the Northwest Territories, Edgar Dewdney, did the necessary honours at the junction of the Calgary and Edmonton line with the CPR’s mainline in East Calgary.
The 93+ miles to Red Deer were constructed by late November but the Red Deer River had to be bridged and track laying ceased for the winter. Both the Bow and Red Deer rivers were crossed with two truss spans of 150 feet each and the second bridge was completed by the end of January 1891. Track laying could not begin again until after break-up but the 95.6 miles to Strathcona (South Edmonton) were completed by July 1891. This became the railway’s terminus on the south bank of the North Saskatchewan River. The line opened on August 23, 1891 and was operated by the CPR. Full scheduled service began in 1892.
The southern branch to Mekastoe (Macleod West) was opened on November 1, 1892. The two branches made it possible to settle lands immediately east of the foothills and for the 295.07 miles of track laid, the C&ER was granted a total of 1,888,448 acres that, after deducting surveying charges, became a net of 1,820,625 acres.3 It was one of the last land grant railways and is also unusual in that apart from less than 13,500 acres in Saskatchewan, all its holdings were selected in the region where the lines were built.4
In 1898, the C&ER was authorized to build a connection with the Crowsnest line, then under construction from Lethbridge into B.C. Mekastoe was 1.14 miles north of the Crowsnest line and the connection was inspected on behalf of the federal government on August 30, 1898 with authority thereby granted for the line to be opened providing trains operated at a maximum of 10 mph until, “... some little works, which are to be done, are completed.”5 This extension enabled coal from the Crowsnest area to be brought northwards to Calgary for domestic and railway use.
By the beginning of the new century, the CPR was no longer friendly with Mackenzie and Mann who were building up a large number of railways that would eve