Hillsborough River Bridge

The Hillsborough River is a 30 km long and up to 1 km wide tidal inlet which empties into Charlottetown Harbour. During the 1800s, a seasonal passenger ferry service operated between the Charlottetown waterfront and Ferry Point on the opposite side. When the river was frozen in winter, horse-drawn sleighs would cross the ice. In 1905, the Prince Edward Island Railway (PEIR) constructed a railway bridge across the river, allowing for train travel to the eastern side.

The Prince Edward Island Railway had constructed a railway line from Southport (now part of Stratford) to Murray Harbour. Like all of the other lines on the Island at the time, the line was built using the 3 ft 6 in (1,067 mm) gauge. The last remaining link in this line involved crossing the Hillsborough River to Charlottetown.

The Intercolonial Railway was a sister company to the PEIR in the neighbouring Maritime provinces and Quebec. Like the PEIR, it was owned by the Government of Canada and it was upgrading its mainline through northeastern New Brunswick to handle heavier locomotives and rail cars. The Intercolonial Railway crossed the Southwest Miramichi River and Northwest Miramichi River between Nelson and Newcastle using two iron bridges set upon stone piers, as designed by engineer-in-chief Sir Sandford Fleming.

These spans were considered surplus after their heavier replacements were installed, thus the federal government decided to salvage the structure for use on the PEIR's line to Murray Harbour. Both bridges, consisting of 12 spans, were transported on barges to Prince Edward Island.

Before installing the structure, the PEIR hauled thousands of rail car loads of soil excavated alongside the railway line east of the St. Dunstan's University campus several miles northwest of the bridge abutment. These railcars were pushed in 10-15 car trains to the waterfront and used to in-fill large areas for expanded rail yards and wharves, as well as to build an approach causeway from the Charlottetown side. A corresponding approach causeway was built on the Southport side using soil excavated along the railway line in Bunbury east of the bridge.

The remaining gap had 11 stone piers constructed deep into the mud of the Hillsborough River using cofferdams and high pressure air, with stone being imported from Nova Scotia and cemented into place atop the sandstone bedrock beneath the riverbed. The bridge had a motorized swing span in the centre to permit ship traffic to operate upriver on the Hillsborough River, with 2 supporting piers when the span was opened.

The bridge opened in 1905 and immediately revolutionized travel in southeastern Prince Edward Island, allowing narrow gauge passenger and freight trains to operate between Charlottetown and Murray Harbour, as well as pedestrians and horse-drawn carriages and sleighs (and later automobiles) to use the bridge when trains were not crossing; for this purpose, wood planks were placed between and on each side of the rails.

The railway bridge saw steady use through to the early 1930s when the PEIR's successor, Canadian National Railways (CNR), completed the conversion of the rail lines in the province from narrow (3 feet 6 inches (107 cm)) to standard (4 feet 8.5 inches (143.5 cm)) gauge. The larger dimensions and weight of standard gauge rail cars and locomotives saw the railway's structural engineers deem the railway bridge unsafe, so a bypass route from Mount Stewart Junction to Lake Verde Junction was built as a depression-era project.

Following the opening of the "Short Line", all heavy rail traffic bound for Murray Harbour was routed through Mount Stewart. The rails on the Hillsborough River Bridge were standard gauged but only lightweight rail cars and locomotives were permitted to use it, thus its use by CNR declined markedly.

In 1950 CNR structural engineers felt the bridge was unsafe for any rail traffic and the rails were removed while the railway instituted taxi service for passengers travelling to Murray Harbour, allowing them to board passenger trains at its terminus near the bridge abutment in Southport.

No longer used for rail traffic, CNR wished to rid itself of operating the bridge and tried to get the provincial government to take ownership. The provincial government, which had been getting away with having the federally owned railway company operate this important bridge for many years, sought to delay any handover and at one point in the early 1950s, CNR engineers barricaded the bridge to public travel, partly out of concern that the bridge was unsafe, and partly to pressure the provincial negotiators.

The provincial government was outraged and Premier J. Walter Jones staged a publicity stunt at the Charlottetown abutment of the bridge, boarding a bulldozer and demanding in front of local media, that the bridge be reopened.

CNR relented and reopened the bridge, making temporary repairs, however the long-term viability of the bridge, then approaching 85 years of age (when its 30-year service in New Brunswick was taken into account), was in doubt.