of the Second World War, aside from brief relief service by the SS Scotia or SS Scotia II from the Strait of Canso railcar ferry service. In 1947, the QSMV Abegweit entered service and carried the ferry system through the 1950s but was quickly overwhelmed by the increase in automobile traffic, in addition to the constant rail traffic. The completion of the Trans-Canada Highway across PEI and the neighbouring Maritime provinces in the early 1960s saw Borden host a new automobile-only ferry, the MV Confederation, which was built in 1962. During the late 1960s, automobile traffic saw record growth. In 1968, CN stopped operating passenger trains on PEI, switching the service over to buses, and the ferry terminals and parking lots at Borden and Cape Tormentine were redesigned by CN to accommodate more cars and trucks; in Borden's case, part of its rail yard was used for this purpose, with the yard being redesigned in light of declining rail traffic and resulting in the town's original passenger station being demolished. Throughout the 20th century, and going as far back as the latter 19th century before a ferry service was instituted, there had been discussions by various politicians about replacing the ferry service with a permanent crossing. Early proposals envisioned a railway tunnel under the Northumberland Strait but these evolved by the causeway-building craze of the 1950s (coupled with the development of the Trans-Canada Highway) into designs incorporating a causeway and tunnel beneath a navigation channel to carry rail and road traffic. Discussions and proposals were timed around federal elections and work on the land-based approach roads in New Brunswick and PEI for one proposal was actually undertaken in 1965 before all talk of a permanent crossing was shelved in light of scientific recommendations against a causeway (for navigation and environmental reasons). The federal government instead opted to expand the capacity of the existing ferry system. The late 1960s saw a temporary relief vessel, the MV Lucy Maude Montgomery, enter service for several years, along with a much larger and more powerful icebreaking railcar ferry, the MV John Hamilton Gray, which entered service in 1968, retiring the SS Prince Edward Island after a record 51 years of service. New docks were constructed and more permanent vessels for the ferry service were ordered. In 1971 the sister ships MV Holiday Island and MV Vacationland entered service, and Borden processed record traffic on