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The European and North American Railway (E&NA) is the name for three historic Canadian and American railways which were built in New Brunswick and Maine. The idea of the E&NA as a single system was conceived at a railway conference in Portland, Maine in 1850 by railroad entrepreneur John A. Poor. The line was intended to link Portland (the eastern terminus of the US rail network) with an ice-free Atlantic port in Nova Scotia to connect with fast trans-Atlantic ships from Europe; the port at Halifax was discussed as a possible eastern terminus for the line, as was Canso. The concept was also discussed throughout the early 1850s in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Maine as a means to connect the British colonies with the railway network of the United Province of Canada. Poor himself was also promoting a connection from Portland to Richmond and built the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad (SL&A), opening in 1853, the same year it was purchased by Grand Trunk. Poor stood to benefit from a dual flow of traffic from the Maritimes to New England and the Maritimes to the Canadas. ==E&NA “Eastern Extension” (Saint John to Shediac)== The railway most commonly referred to as the E&NA in Canada was built between Saint John and Shediac, New Brunswick as a segment of Poor’s vision of a Portland-Nova Scotia line. The initial ownership of the line is unclear, however the European and North American Railway was incorporated in New Brunswick on March 15, 1851, following the Portland conference, with the intention being to start construction east toward Nova Scotia. Both Saint John, and St. Andrews, New Brunswick were vying for the E&NA to begin in their respective communities; however Saint John managed to convince the company to begin on the east side of the Saint John River. Saint John also convinced the company to forego plans to build into Nova Scotia by concentrating on reaching the Northumberland Strait first. This would give the city a steamship connection through the Gulf of St. Lawrence to Canada East, as well as allowing coal and other goods to avoid the circuitous and hazardous transit around Nova Scotia. Construction started in 1853, heading northeast from Saint John up the Kennebecasis River valley. Unfortunately construction did not proceed very far and the company went bankrupt in 1856 with the colonial government of New Brunswick taking over the company’s line in 1857. That year (1857) saw construction proceed apace under a newly reincorporated government-owned European and North American Railway Co. Canada’s first civil engineering graduate, H.G.C. Ketchum, of the University of New Brunswick, was employed in the surveying and construction of the line. Ketchum surveyed a high-capacity railway with long tangent sections and minimal grades between Saint John and Moncton. The first section of the E&NA opened between Shediac and Moncton on August 20, 1857, a distance of 16.8 miles. Although the Shediac-Moncton section was the first part opened, the line was soon extended 2 miles east to the better wharf facilities at Point du Chene. The line had been surveyed to extend from Cape Brule 2 miles further east of Point du Chene, however the sheltered harbour at Point du Chene won out over the more exposed Cape Brule location. Meanwhile the line between Hampton, New Brunswick and Saint John opened in 1859 and the remaining section between Moncton and Hampton was opened in 1860. Unfortunately, the E&NA never progressed east from Moncton to its stated goal of Nova Scotia. By the late 1850s, the Nova Scotia Railway had already built a line from Halifax to Truro, Nova Scotia, with a stated ambition of building westward to link with the E&NA in New Brunswick; thus the E&NA stood with its Saint John-Shediac line for several years. The missing link between Truro and Moncton was finally built by the Intercolonial Railway, completed in 1872. The E&NA’s “Eastern Extension” locomotive shops and headquarters were located in Shediac until it was taken over by the Intercolonial Railway, which then moved them to Moncton. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「European and North American Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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