New Brunswick Railroad History (National Institute)

The Railway and The Moncton Shops
The terminal, headquarters and shops of the European and North American Railway were in Shediac, but the shops there burned in 1871. The I.C.R. line ran through Moncton and it was decided to rebuild the shops there on a site on Albert Street. The I.C.R. then established their headquarters in Moncton and the town at The Bend was on its way to being New Brunswick’s railway centre. You can find a blow by blow account in Lloyd A. Machum’s A History of Moncton, Town and City, 1855-1965 (City of Moncton, 1965). Again, railways and railway shops mean jobs, so Moncton grew.

The biggest fire that ever occurred in Moncton was the destruction of these shops, by then the Intercolonial Railway Shops, on 24 February 1906. Would the shops be moved to Upper Canada like so much Maritime industry? Fortunately the Member for Westmorland was the Hon. Henry R. Emmerson, who also happened to be Minister of Railways. Work was begun on new shops, at the edge of town, and they were opened in 1908.

The I.C.R. line ran north and south, the E. and N.A.R. provided branch lines to Shediac-Point du Chene and to Saint John, so the railway ran trains, morning and night, to and from the shops to bring in and deliver home the workers. Don’t be surprised to find men working in the shops living as far away as Point-du-Chene, Memramcook, Petitcodiac or Canaan, but their homes will be within walking distance of the rail line. These trains also allowed business men who had summer cottages around Shediac Bay to travel to and from work in the summer. Nepotism was part of the Railway way of life, so expect to find sons apprenticed to their fathers or uncles, and even a sister working in the office (and also taking the train to work).

If a New Brunswick ancestor “worked for the railroad”, the odds are it was the I.C.R.(Canadian Government Railway [C.G.R], Canadian National Railway [C.N.R.])unless they lived in the Saint John, McAdam area. An amazing collection of I.C.R./C.N.R. Canadian Railway Records: A Guide for Genealogists,pages 36-37.

Almost as good is another source, in print and microfilmed. The Sessional Papers of the Dominion of Canada were issued annually by the Queen’s/King’s Printer in Ottawa from 1868 to 1925. After that year they are continued in part by the Annual Departmental reports. You will find the full bibliographical data in Library and Archives Canada; AMICUS catalogue where you can search either the title or use the AMICUS number: 15507306.

According to AMICUS, they have been microfilmed (by both Micromedia and Princeton Microfilm). They ought to be in Provincial Legislative Libraries and older University Libraries. In the early years, there is a section of Intercolonial Railway papers and in 1878 (Papers No. 21) this includes a “Statement showing names, occupation and salary of all persons except ordinary mechanics and labourers who were in the service of the Intercolonial Railway, on 31st March, 1876”. The list included everyone’s age.

By 1909 the lists are found in the “Auditor General’s Report” on the Department of Canals and Railways and include every employee of the Intercolonial Railway, their job or trade and their wages. By the First World War the Moncton Shops employed so many that only the aggregate wages were given, but the lists still included everyone in the smaller regional shops, every Station Agent, every [telegraph] Operator, and all the clerks and stenographers in the offices.

The “Post Office Department” provided a complete list of “Superintendents and Railway Mail Clerks: Salaries” from British Columbia to Prince Edward Island, as well as all the employees at local Post Offices. The Postmasters are in a searchable database posted on Library and Archives Canada website. Anyone who was employed or paid money by the Dominion of Canada will probably turn up in some Sessional Papers’ list or another, in some year or another.

CNRA Moncton
A curious bit of railway history is the CNR’s radio broadcasting network, developed as “new entertainment” for train passengers. CNRM in Montréal and CNRO in Ottawa were soon joined by “The Voice of the Maritimes,” CNRA which broadcast from the CNR Offices in Moncton with a power of 500 watts and using a broadcasting tower set in the front lawn. Programming was local and you might find a talented ancestor in their Programme Listing in the newspapers.

A CPR Town
The Canadian Pacific Railway completed their “Short Line” from Montréal to Saint John in 1889, using the Maine Central tracks through Maine. Saint John was a CPR town, and many of their ocean-going steamships landed there. Just one more division of the province and another cause of rivalry between the two major urban centres. A ferry ran from Saint John to Digby where the Dominion Atlantic took passengers to Halifax. The CPR is believed to still hold its old personnel records but they are no longer open to researchers.

Geographic Perceptions and Steam
As the network of rail lines spread out across North America, the Maritime Province’s international shipping lines were shrinking. In the 1850s, centres of civilization like Liverpool and Boston could be reached by ship, and the route to the American west had been to sail down to New York, take a boat up the Hudson and the Erie Canal to the Great Lakes and so to Wisconsin. By 1890 steam ships provided regular service to Liverpool, and it was faster to take the train to Wisconsin, or Seattle. Some of those trains took the Maritimers into Upper Canada and west; Montréal and Toronto ceased to be foreign, distant places.