Algoma Eastern

Company History: Construction of the M&NS began in 1900 with a the goal of building a railway from Sudbury, Ontario southwest to Little Current on the north shore of Manitoulin Island in Lake Huron (it holds the distinction of being the largest freshwater island in the world.) They then hoped to build across the island to a carfloat dock so trains could be delivered to Tobermory on the Bruce Peninsula to the southeast of the island. Alas, Little Current was as far as the line would be built. Traffic consisted of copper, sulphur and paper products. The sulphur was a byproduct of copper smelting and was used in the paper making process. Since the original owners of the railroad were in the paper business, it was actually copper that was the byproduct to them. The name change to Algoma Eastern came in 1911 because the new owners Lake Superior Corporation called all of their subsidiaries “Algoma” – something. In 1913, a 600’ swing bridge was completed to reach Little Current and with that the railroad was completed. The AER locomotive fleet included a single 4-6-0, two 2-6-0’s and six 2-8-0’s. The crash of 1929 brought an end to most of the copper traffic and the parent company sought to unload the AER. In 1930, AER was leased to Canadian Pacific for 999 years. The copper traffic later returned. Short segments of this line are still in operation today.

Successor/Parent History: The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR), formerly also known as CP Rail (reporting mark CP) between 1968 and 1996, is a historic Canadian Class I railroad incorporated in 1881. The railroad is owned by Canadian Pacific Railway Limited (TSX: CP, NYSE: CP), which began operations as legal owner in a corporate restructuring in 2001.

Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta, it owns approximately 23,000 kilometres (14,000 mi) of track all across Canada and into the United States, stretching from Montreal to Vancouver, and as far north as Edmonton. Its rail network also serves major cities in the United States, such as Minneapolis, Milwaukee, Detroit, Chicago, and New York City.

The railway was originally built between Eastern Canada and British Columbia between 1881 and 1885 (connecting with Ottawa Valley and Georgian Bay area lines built earlier), fulfilling a promise extended to British Columbia when it entered Confederation in 1871. It was Canada's first transcontinental railway, but currently does not reach the Atlantic coast. Primarily a freight railway, the CPR was for decades the only practical means of long-distance passenger transport in most regions of Canada, and was instrumental in the settlement and development of Western Canada. The CP became one of the largest and most powerful companies in Canada, a position it held as late as 1975. Its primary passenger services were eliminated in 1986, after being assumed by Via Rail Canada in 1978. A beaver was chosen as the railway's logo because it is the national symbol of Canada and was seen as representing the hardworking character of the company.

The company acquired two American lines in 2009: the Dakota, Minnesota and Eastern Railroad and the Iowa, Chicago and Eastern Railroad. The trackage of the ICE was at one time part of CP subsidiary Soo Line and predecessor line The Milwaukee Road. The combined DME/ICE system spanned North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Nebraska and Iowa, as well as two short stretches into two other states, which included a line to Kansas City, Missouri, and a line to Chicago, Illinois, and regulatory approval to build a line into the Powder River Basin of Wyoming. It is publicly traded on both the Toronto Stock Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker CP. Its U.S. headquarters are in Minneapolis.

After close of markets on November 17, 2015, CP announced an offer to purchase all outstanding shares of Norfolk Southern Railway, at a price in excess of the US$26 billion capitalization of the United States-based railway. If completed, this merger of the second and fourth oldest Class I railroads in North America would have formed the largest single railway company on that continent, reaching from the Pacific coast to the Atlantic coast to the Gulf Coast. The merger effort was abandoned by Canadian Pacific on April 11, 2016, after three offers were rejected by the Norfolk Southern board.

Read more on Wikipedia and on Canadian Pacific official website.

Brief History: Canada is a North American country stretching from the U.S. in the south to the Arctic Circle in the north. Major cities include massive Toronto, west coast film centre Vancouver, French-speaking Montréal and Québec City, and capital city Ottawa. Canada's vast swaths of wilderness include lake-filled Banff National Park in the Rocky Mountains. It's also home to Niagara Falls, a famous group of massive waterfalls.