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The Kid's Site of Canadian Trains

Famous Moments

Opening the West

Once the coast-to-coast railway was completed in 1885, settling the West became possible.

Poster advertising the train rates for travelling west and explaining the method of travel for each section of the route

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Poster advertising train rates for immigrants travelling west, 1872. In order to travel the 1 078 miles from Toronto to Fort Garry, travellers had to take a train, steamer, wagon, open boat, and finally cart or wagon

I Was There

"Father went out first by train to scout out the land. Then he wired Mother, who followed him by train with us children. The rail line ended at Kindersley and our homestead site was another three days' travel by horse and wagon. We had two wagons to carry the family and the things we'd need to get started. Behind all of this, we had a cow and a few other farm animals tied on, so we were quite a procession. When we finally got to our destination, we had to search for most of a day to find our property. We knew it was somewhere in those thousands of flat, empty acres, but the only marker was a corner stake driven into the ground."

Photograph of old railway cars that were converted into houses for immigrants

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Settlers' first homes were either tents, sod houses, shacks or old railway cars, like these ones in Saskatchewan

Photograph of Hungarian immigrants standing on the platform in front of a train, 1920

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Hungarian immigrants travelling by train, 1920

I Was There

"In 1910 my parents decided to take up homesteading. ... Father ... felt there was a lot of money to be made growing grain. The land was only a dollar an acre, and everyone thought that this was a chance to make a fortune."

Watch This

Part of a silent film showing Ukrainian immigrants about to board a train, 1921 (running time: 25 s)
[RM 836 KB] / Source