This article is part of the history of rail transport by country series. The history of rail transport in Canada began in the early 19th century. The Canadian railway system saw several expansion "booms" throughout history, as well as a major change from broad to standard gauge which occurred in the 1870s. An initially disconnected system was gradually integrated with the American railway network, as Canadian and American railway companies built lines and bought smaller companies in each other's country. The Intercolonial Railway, a product of Canadian Confederation, was Canada's first major experiment in railway nationalization, and following Confederation, several transcontinental railways were built. Many Canadian railways were gradually brought together under large conglomerates, but by the end of the First World War, the sudden and decisive financial collapse of these conglomerates created a deep threat to Canadian infrastructure and economy, leading to their nationalization under the Dominion government. This nationalization and consolidation process produced the Canadian National Railways (CNR), which was owned by the Canadian federal government until 1995. The Great Depression led to a decline in rail traffic, and the sudden reversal of this during the Second World War left railways with overtaxed, aging, and poorly-maintained infrastructure. Toward the end of the 1950s, railways began to transition toward diesel trains. Ridership on passenger trains declined postwar, leading to railways to pursue their abandonment. Nationally, most passenger services were transferred to a new crown agency, Via Rail. Early tramways Canada coalesced into a state following millennia of First Nations habitation, as well as centuries of habitation by European settlers. Different parts of the country were settled at different times, with their transport systems laid out in reflection of the era. Early transport patterns of indigenous peoples and voyageurs followed large natural waterways such as the Great Lakes waterway system, the Saint Lawrence River, and the Ottawa River. This was suitable for the fur trade, which involved the transport of light, high-value commodities by boat early in its history. The earliest recognizably railway-like system in recorded Canadian history was an industrial tramway on Cape Breton Island, which is said to have been built around 1720. The existence of a tramway, as opposed to simply a road, is poorly attested in written and archaeological records, but was present in local oral history in the early 20th century. This tramway has been cited in various sources as an example of a pre-steam