Jay Underwood 224 pages softcover
In the years immediately following Canada's Confederation, the designing and building of the Intercolonial Railway was the most important and challenging civil engineering project undertaken by the new country. Conventional history has long left the impression that Canada's first national railway was built single-handedly by chief engineer Sandford Fleming, when in fact he was assisted by a veritable army of engineers, several of whom were equally qualified to hold his post. This book, the first to fully describe the careers of these men, reveals a corps of geniuses - and some charlatans-who all played a role in the completion of the Intercolonial Railway, the line that bound a country together with a ribbon of steel. Author Jay Underwood tells the stories of the individuals who came together in what became an international consortium of men.