Grand Trunk Pacific Railway

Ancillary facilities

The GTPR built the Fort Garry Hotel in Winnipeg and the Hotel Macdonald in Edmonton. Halibird and Roche of Chicago designed the hotel for Prince George, but it never left the drawing-board stage. Construction of the $2m Chateau Prince Rupert, designed by Francis Rattenbury, did not proceed beyond the foundations, laid in 1910. Its forerunner, the temporary GTP Inn, was demolished in 1962. Sometimes in conjunction with the CNoR, the GTPR built some impressive city stations.

When built in 1910, the Grand Trunk Pacific dock in Seattle was the largest on the West Coast. On July 30, 1914, fire destroyed the facility. The federal government provided a $2m subsidy for a dry dock at Prince Rupert to handle ships up to 20,000 tons. Completed in 1915, it catered for only much smaller local vessels prior to World War II. It was dismantled in 1954 to 1955.

Operations

The CNoR tracklaying through the Canadian Rockies in 1913 roughly paralleled the GTPR line of 1911 and created about 100 miles of duplication. In 1917, a contingent from the Corps of Canadian Railway Troops added several crossovers to amalgamate the tracks into a single line along the preferred grade from Lobstick, Alberta, to Red Pass Junction, British Columbia. The surplus rails were lifted and the heavier-grade GTPR ones shipped to France for use during World War I.

Through the 1910s, several branches were built by the GTP under the Grand Trunk Pacific Branch Lines Company and the Grand Trunk Pacific Saskatchewan Railway Company, subsidiaries of GTP. These included branches to Prince Albert, Battleford, Calgary, and to the international border via Regina. Further branches were projected, and many were completed under Canadian National.