Minister of Canada, Sir John A. Macdonald and his wife Lady Macdonald. The bridge was operational in 1889 and was a subsidiary company to the Northern and Western Railway. On July 1, 1890, the Canadian Pacific Railway obtained control of the NBR with a lease for 999 years. The CPR obtained trackage rights over Gibson's railway bridge to connect its line to Fredericton with the line from Devon to Woodstock. The Northern and Western Railway was renamed to the Canada Eastern Railway in 1890 and was purchased in 1904 by a federal Crown corporation the Intercolonial Railway (ICR) to give the railway access to the provincial capital. The ICR operated the line from Fredericton to the Miramichi River valley as well as the Fredericton railway bridge. The ICR was merged into the Canadian National Railways (CNR) in 1918. The original bridge was heavily damaged by ice and flood waters in the spring freshet of March 1935. CNR replaced it with the current structure which was officially opened by federal Minister of Transport, the Honourable C. D. Howe, on June 1, 1938. The ceremony was attended by hundreds of local citizens to celebrate the restoration of rail service across the river which had been severed 17 months earlier. Rail traffic in Fredericton declined during the post-war era as new highways were opened and shippers converted to trucks. The decline in traffic resulted in a decline in service which was apparent by the 1980s. Railway deregulation in the late 1980s and early 1990s saw CPR's Canadian Atlantic Railway subsidiary abandon freight service through Fredericton, including its trackage rights on CN over this bridge in November 1993. CN abandoned its Nashwaak Subdivision, including the Fredericton Railway Bridge, in 1995 however an emergency shipment of coal to the heating plant at CFB Gagetown was authorized over the track as the final freight train through Fredericton in March 1996. Rail trail CN transferred ownership of its properties, including the bridge to the provincial government and the structure was converted to a pedestrian and cycling bridge using federal and provincial government funding as a "millennium project" for use as a recreational rail trail; this conversion to pedestrian and cycling use saw the bridge deck planked over and safety guardrails installed. Today the bridge is a popular part of the Sentier NB Trail and is a component of the Trans Canada Trail. See also List of bridges