The first hotels were located in the Rocky Mountains and served a dual purpose: in addition to enticing tourists to take the Canadian Pacific Railway to visit the Rockies, these hotels also served to provide meals to train passengers where the grade of incline was too steep for trains to carry heavy dining cars with them. With this in mind, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company opened the first of what would quickly become an extensive system of luxury hotels in 1886. The first transcontinental train left Montreal in June, 1886, heading for Port Moody, which was then the terminus station the terminus would be moved to Vancouver in 1887.įollowing the completion of the railroad, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company was concerned that the railway would not have enough business to be profitable. These shortcuts entailed months of subsequent work before the railway was fit for use. However, the Canadian Pacific Railway Company had encountered financial troubles during construction and had taken cost-cutting shortcuts in order to complete the railway. While this was four years after the original deadline, it was still well in advance of the new 1891 deadline. On November 7, 1885, the last spike connecting the eastern and western sections of railroad track was driven by Donald A. Although the Chinese workers could lay 6 miles of track a day, it was at a terrible price: two men died for every mile of track laid.
These Chinese workers were paid considerably less than their Canadian counterparts and were often assigned the most dangerous jobs, such as working with explosives. Onderdonk brought in thousands of Chinese labourers to work on the railway. Andrew Onderdonk was hired to manage construction through British Columbia’s treacherous terrain. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company hired William Cornelius Van Horne as the new general manager under his management, 500 miles of track were built in 1882 alone. They were granted land for railway use as well as other development and were given a new deadline: 1891. The Canadian Pacific Railway Company was incorporated on Februto take over construction of the transcontinental railroad. By 1881, however, very little of the railway had been completed. When British Columbia joined the Confederation in 1871, it was with the promise of a railway connecting it to the rest of Canada within 10 years.
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