George Laidlaw
George Laidlaw was a businessman who promoted the development of narrow gauge railways and was invaluable in the chartering of the Toronto amp Nipissing and the Toronto Grey amp Bruce Railways in 1868. From then until his retirement in 1881, he continued to promote the initiation or extension of several other local railways, and proposed a grand plan for uniting the independent railways of southern Ontario into a competitive alternative to the Grand Trunk Railroad. Though it was met with minimal success at the time, the idea was the backbone of what was to become the Canadian Pacific Railway.
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Source: Wikipedia