Canada and tourism — страница 3

of two-way traffic within North America for importers and exporters. The second transcontinental railway in Canada is the Canadian National Railway (CNR) . Established between 1917 - 1923, the railway incorporates the Old Grand Trunk Railway, Grand Trunk Pacific, Intercolonial, Canadian Northern and National Transcontinental Railway. CNR connects Halifax in the east to Vancouver and Prince Rupert in the west with the Gulf Coast through Chicago and New Orleans. Covering some 72 963 kilometers of track, the railway has more than 85, 000 railcars and carries mainly coal, grain and petroleum. Canada also has railways that specialize in passenger transport. Canadian Passenger Rail Service provides rail transport to many places in Canada through its connections with other passenger

train companies in the country. The Algoma Central Railway provides passenger service from Sault St. Marie to Hearst, while AMT operates in Montreal. The Ontario Northland Railway offers travel from North Bay up to Moosonee and the Quebec North Shore and Labrador, and the West Coast Express services western Canada. BC Rail is the third largest freight/passenger service train behind CNR and CPR. Formally know as the Pacific Great Eastern Railway in 1912 and the British Columbia Railway in 1972, it became known as BC Rail in 1984. It has 1 573 kilometers of line from North Vancouver to Fort Nelson and operates mainly on the west coast. VIA Rail runs trains throughout Canada on a need only basis. There are four main categories of VIA Rail trains operating within Canada: 1) corridor

trains that run from eastern Quebec City to Windsor, Ontario 2) western trains that make trips from Toronto to Vancouver, stopping in Sudbury, Winnipeg, Saskatoon, Edmonton, Jasper and Kamloops -- a journey that takes three days 3) eastern trains -- the 'Chaleur' and the 'Ocean' which travel between Montreal and Gaspe and Montreal and Halifax, respectively. 4) northern trains -- Skeena, Saguenay & Abitibi and The Hudson Bay --that run in Alberta, Northern Quebec and Manitoba respectively. Water transport in Canada occurs mainly on the Great Lakes/St. Lawrence Seaway System, which is a series of locks, canals and channels which link the Atlantic Ocean and the St. Lawrence River to Ontario and the upper Great Lakes. The system extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the city of

Lakehead on the west shore of Lake Superior. The seaway provides access to 15 major and 50 minor ports from late March to early December, and consists of more than 245 752 square kilometers of navigable waters. The seaway directly serves Canada's two largest provinces, Quebec and Ontario, as well as a number of US states including New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Minnesota. More than 40 provincial and interstate highways connect the seaway ports with key cities in the US and Canada, and nearly 30 railway companies serve the ports by moving bulk, break-bulk, and heavy cargo. Approximately, 90% of the cargo carried by ships on the seaway is bulk cargo such as grain, iron ore, coal and petroleum (10%). Grain is the largest cargo by volume

(40%) as it is primarily a US and Canadian export. Iron pellets are also shipped from mines in Labrador, Quebec, Ontario and Minnesota to mines located on the great lakes. Approximately 60% of the traffic in the seaway is from overseas. Canada Steamship Lines operates 12 vessels on the Great Lakes St. Lawrence Seaway System. Their vessels consist of self-unloading bulk carriers with inland, coastal and deep-sea traveling capabilities. The company has the largest fleet of self unloading vessels in the world that carries 30 million tonnes of bulk load annually; one ship is capable of discharging 6 000 tonnes per hour in a continuous operation. The company is headquartered in Montreal and has offices in Halifax, Winnipeg, Burlington and Singapore. Since 1845 it has been supplying

North America with raw materials for their steel and thermal station power plants. In the beginning, Canada Steamship Lines served only the Great Lakes regions but has now expanded to the east and west coasts, the Caribbean, South America, Europe and the far East. The Canadian Energy Pipeline Association represents companies who transport more than 95% of crude oil and natural gas in Canada. Its member companies, which include Foothills Pipe Line Ltd., NOVA Gas Transmissions and Trans Canada Pipelines Ltd., operate more than 100 000 kilometers of Canada's 540 000 kilometers of pipelines. The company has operations in British Columbia, NorthWest Territories, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario and Quebec, and in 1997 the total volume of natural gas exported was 5. 6 trillion