Who started up the CN Railway?

Question

Who started up the CN Railway?

Answer 1

Indeed, the CN was created by the Canadian government.  The railroad is actually a relatively new railroad having been setup by the government in the early 20th century out of several bankrupt railroads.  

Of note, while the Canadian Pacific was not set up by the government it was given a bit of financial help when chartered in 1881.

Answer 2

According to the CN Railway web page, this rail company was created by the Canadain government.

Answer 3

The simple answer is that the Canadian National Railways was started by the federal government of Canada and has operated as such since January 1923.  However, the story goes back to the early years of Confederation.  

The Intercolonial Railway would today be called a Crown Corporation: that is a business entity owned and operated by the government.  Administered by the Department of Railways and Canals, the name "Canadian Government Railways" emerged as early as 1888.  As the federal government gave loans and other incentives for railway building, it had an active interest in the success of those ventures, sometimes acquiring private companies, and transferring public ones, such as the Prince Edward Island Railway, which was brought into the C.G.R. fold in the mid 1870s.  A large federally funded venture, the National Transcontinental Railway {operated by the Grand Trunk Pacific} left the feds 'holding the bag' near the end of WW I, as the parent company faultered.  The privately built calamity-on-wheels Canadian Northern Railway {C. No R.} was rescued from oblivion when the feds bought out most of its voting shares in 1916, and appointed the same board of directors for both the C.G.R. and the C.No R., describing them as early as 1918 as "Canadian National Railways."

Former competitor to the C. No R. was the Grand Trunk Railway {which included the Central Vermont Railway}.  Privately built and operated, it too had borrowed from the Canadian government, and found itself in severe financial difficulty, and filed for receivership in 1919, along with its federally-partnered susidiary Grand Trunk Pacific.

Canadian National Railways {the name finally legalized in 1922} thus became the umbrella administration to forge a single coherent system from many small operations, a process which took about 25 years to complete.

C.N. continued to add to its empire with the absorption of the Newfoundland Railway {upon Newfoundland's entry in to Confederation in 1949}, and more recently took over the British Columbia Railway.  This latest expansion seems to have followed the pattern of an earlier railway {the Canadian Northern} with a series of derailments and incredibly stupid mistakes which have run up an appalling toll in lives lost and equipment destroyed.  More successful, and less trouble-prone have been a series of purchases in the U.S., but with it has come some loss of autonomy as an increasing number of shares are held by American interests.