Booth's sawmill operations could never run at full capacity because the output could not be carried out of the lumber yards fast enough. As a result of the transportation problems he experienced in the Ottawa area, Booth became an important participant in the development of Canada's railway system when he purchased two railway companies in 1879, the Montreal and City of Ottawa Junction Railway (M&OJ) and the Coteau and Province Line Railway and Bridge Company (C&PL). The M&OJ had received a charter to build southeast from Ottawa to Coteau, QC on the north bank of the St. Lawrence River. The C&PL had received a charter to build a bridge across the St. Lawrence River to Valleyfield, QC and then across southwestern Quebec to Swanton, VT on the eastern shore of Lake Champlain. Due to financial difficulties, neither line had been completed and Booth worked through the early to mid 1880s on completing this route between Ottawa and Swanton. In the late 1880s and throughout the 1890s Booth established a third company, the Ottawa, Arnprior and Parry Sound Railway (OA&PS) which received a charter to build northwest from Ottawa to the shores of Lake Huron at Depot Harbour, ON. All three lines met "end to end". The M&OJ met the OA&PS on Booth's sawmill property in Ottawa while the C&PL met the M&OJ in Coteau, using several hundred feet of trackage rights of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR).