Trains were used a lot around 1900 on P.E.I. Trains were used to ship goods, carry passengers around the Island, and sometimes were even used to carry bodies to the graveyard for burial.

The Prince Edward Island Railway started in May 1875, and the trains stopped running in 1989 because automobiles had become so popular. For a long time, trains were the most dependable transportation in the summer. In the winter, old-time trains had big plows on the front to clear the snow off the tracks.

Trains were a big part of Island travel, so every city and town had to have its own train station. (See the map in the picture for the station stops in 1884.) Most of the train stations were just little three-walled shacks, but some of them, like the Charlottetown train station, were huge stations.

Some types of transportation that people used on PEI in the late 1800's and early 1900's were horses and buggies, carriages, sleighs, trains, ice boats, horses, walking on foot, and bicycles. Some methods of transportation, like ice boats and sleighs, were only used in the winter. Others, like horses and buggies, bicycles and carriages, were only used in the summer. Still others were used in both winter and summer, such as trains and horses.

The way people kept the train tracks clear was to put a plow on the front of the train or to shovel the tracks. Train tracks are made out of steel or iron.

This picture was taken from across the water while on the train was its way to Howlan, Prince Edward Island. This is a freight train, probably carrying farm products to market.

This picture shows a large group of men with snow shovels standing next to a train. The picture was made in 1913. The subject is railroads, and the photographer was Jack Turner.