Large-scale industrialization came to the Sydney Coal Field when two large conglomerates were formed in the 1890s: the Dominion Coal Company, or DOMCO (in 1893), and the Nova Scotia Steel and Coal Company, or SCOTIA (in 1900).
DOMCO's railway lines were operated as a department of the company and were rationalized beginning the following year in 1894 when the International Railway was extended to Glace Bay and Caledonia, permitting the abandonment of a roughly parallel narrow gauge line.