Book excerpt: William Cornelius Van Horne and the building of the Canadian Pacific Railway. For armchair railroaders, historians, students - anyone fascinated by Canadian history - Van Horne's Road is a pictorial history of the railroad that forged a nation. Widely hailed as one of the most informative and important histories of the construction and first years of operation of the Canadian Pacific Transcontinental Railway, this vibrant new edition of Van Horne's Road has been reformatted and redesigned for a new generation of readers as a permanent tribute to the people responsible for the building of what has been called Canada's National Highway. Containing more than 450 photographs, illustrations, and historic documents - supplemented by 40 maps and diagrams designed by the author - the book presents a coast-to-coast recreation of what indisputably stands as one of the most important and historic undertakings in the history of this nation.