Track gauge in Canada is standard gauge of, except for Toronto transit systems. Rail lines built during the 19th century with a broad gauge of were converted to standard gauge.
History
The first railway in British North America, the Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad, was built in the mid-1830s to track gauge. This was followed by the Albion Colliery tramway in and the Montreal and Lachine Railroad in. However the promoters of St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad, decided to use, setting a precedent for the colony for several decades. The first section from Longueuil to St. Hyacinthe opened in 1847 and at the end of that year there were of broad gauge and of standard gauge in Canada. Following a Royal Commission, in 1851 the broad gauge was adopted by the Province of Canada as the standard gauge and government subsidies were unavailable for railways that chose other gauges. Well-known colonial systems such as the Grand Trunk Railway and Great Western Railway, along with the Intercolonial Railway, European and North American Railway and Nova Scotia Railway later expanded the use of broad gauge. By 1860 there were of broad gauge and of standard gauge.
Conversion to gauge
In 1867 the Great Western Railway converted to dual gauge the line from Windsor to Suspension Bridge, where it connected to the US network, allowing an end to transshipment at the previous break-of-gauge. The railroad even ran mixed gauge trains on the line. In 1864 the Grand Trunk Railway had taken control of the standard gauge Montreal and Champlain Railroad which had two lines to the US border; while they installed some short sections of dual gauge track they did not convert the main lines. The GTR trialled 500 wagons with variable gauge wheel-sets but these proved unreliable and were considered potentially dangerous. In 1870 the new Parliament of Canada repealed the act mandating after which time there was a change to standard gauge over several years. However, each railway had to change lines quickly, coordinating locomotive and track replacement with rolling stock replacements or upgrades. The rise in standardization with the US came about because of increasing trade across the border after the American Civil War, a process that was also underway within the US which had a greater diversity of gauges. The notion that rolling stock could earn money while on other railroads had become attractive, adding to the spur for standardization. The Grand Trunk system started converting its border lines in 1872 and finished converting its lines east of Montreal in 1874. The Canadian government-owned Intercolonial Railway converted from broad to standard gauge in 1875 while still under construction. By the end of 1881 there were only of broad gauge left belonging to two lines that closed in 1898 and 1910 respectively. After the 1870s, the Canadian Pacific Railway and most major new lines were built to the standard gauge, including all the railways built through the Canadian Rocky Mountains to the Pacific coast. In addition to the CPR these included the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway, the Canadian Northern Railway and the Pacific Great Eastern Railway. The latter three were eventually acquired by Canadian National Railway, which is now the largest railway in Canada. All remaining Canadian freight railways use standard gauge. In 1963 Canadian Rail called broad gauge a "blight" caused by "selfish commercial interests". The journal said that without broad gauge the Great Western Railway and Grand Trunk Railway would have avoided many problems, and speculated the Grand Trunk Railway might have survived as an independent system.
In Toronto, the subway system and the streetcar system use Toronto gauge of. However, standard gauge is used on light metro lines and light-rail lines, all of which are considered part of the Toronto subway system. Toronto gauge was chosen to accommodate horse-drawn wagons on the streetcar tracks for horse-drawn trams. The Articles of Agreement signed in 1861 between the City of Toronto and the Toronto Street Railways required "That the gauge of the said railways shall be such that the ordinary vehicles now in use may travel on the said tracks". There was no mention of a specific track gauge, but because ordinary wagon wheels did not have a flange, they could not travel on the same rails as conventional streetcars. To meet the requirement, the streetcar tracks were placed wide enough apart so that ordinary wagon wheels could run on the inside step of the tracks. This resulted in Toronto streetcar tracks being slightly broader gauge than standard-gauge tracks. Later, when the first subway line was built, it was designed to use the same track gauge as the streetcars. This provided for sharing of rail equipment and maintenance facilities. However, while a handful of streetcars have been converted for use as subway work cars, passenger service on subway lines has been restricted to only subway trains.
