The GTPR/NTR deal came in the heady final days of Canada's railway boom and would soon prove to be the financial straw that broke the back of Canada's railway industry during the First World War. Canada has supported two transcontinental railway systems for many years, but even in 1914 it was not clear that there was enough traffic for three. The GTPR/NTR system was surveyed and construction began in 1905 and the entire system was finished (except for the Quebec Bridge) in 1913. The task was monumental and no expense was spared in building a railway system of minimal grades and curvature. In crossing the Appalachian Mountains of eastern Quebec and northern New Brunswick, the NTR used massive bridges, such as the Cap-Rouge trestle to span wide valleys. The Quebec Bridge over the St. Lawrence River, the largest cantilever span in the world, took $40 million of the $170 million total project cost alone. The territory across northern Quebec and Ontario to Winnipeg, through the heart of the Canadian Shield, posed an extremely difficult construction obstacle. It also generated very little traffic.