ion of the Liverpool and Manchester
Railway, a charter was granted by the legislature of Lower Canada to
the Company of the Proprietors of the Champlain and St Lawrence
Railroad, for a line from Laprairie on the St Lawrence to St Johns,
sixteen miles distant {37} on the Richelieu river, just above the
rapids. From St Johns transportation to New York was easily effected,
through the Richelieu to Lake Champlain and thence to the Hudson. This
portage road promised to shorten materially the journey from Montreal
to New York.

Construction was begun in 1835, and the road opened for traffic in July
1836. The rails were of wood, with thin flat bars of iron spiked on.
These were apt to curl up on the least provocation, whence came their
popular name of 'snake-rails.' At first horse power was used, but in
1837 the proprietors imported an engine and an engineer from England.
Some premonition of trouble made the management decide to make the
trial run by moonlight. In spite of all the efforts of engineer and
officials, the _Kitten_ would not budge an inch. Finally an engineer,
borrowed from the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad, reported that all that
was needed was 'more wood and water,' and given these the _Kitten_
gambolled along at twenty miles an hour.

The Champlain and St Lawrence was at first operated only in the summer,
when its services as a portage route were most needed. After a decade
of moderately successful working, it was decided, significantly, to
lengthen {38} the rail and shorten the water section of the route. By
1852 the rails had been extended northward to St Lambert, opposite
Montreal, and southward to Rouse's Point, on Lake Champlain. Twenty
years later this pioneer road, after a period of leasing, was
completely absorbed by the Grand Trunk Railway.

[Illustration: The first railway engine in Canada. Champlain and St
Lawrence Railroad, 1837. From a print in the Chateau de Ramezay.]

For ten years the sixteen-mile Champlain and St Lawrence was the sole
steam railway in British North America, while by 1846 the United
Kingdom had built over twenty-eight hundred miles, and the United
States nearly five thousand. Political unrest, commercial depression,
absorption of public funds in canals, hindered development in Canada.
Many projects were formed and charters secured--for roads in the
western peninsula of Upper Canada, between Cobourg and Rice Lake, on
the Upper Ottawa, in the Eastern Townships, and e