The problems of early railway construction in Canada differed from those in the United States and Britain. Natural barriers, such as the gorge at Port Hope, taxed the ingenuity and technology of early builders. The Port Hope Viaduct was built by the Grand Trunk Railway as part of its ambitious plan to link the Canadas. By 1858 it owned nearly a thousand miles of track. That track had left the public treasury with a staggering debt, while many speculators and political figures had reaped huge profits. Only the scandals which later surrounded the Canadian Pacific Railway exceeded the public outcry concerning the Grand Trunk.
