 In 1897 Booth merged the assets of all three independent companies into a new one named Canada Atlantic Railway.In 1871 and 1872 a group headed by Donald Macdonald, the brother of Ontario's first premier, Sir John Sandfield Macdonald, created two railway companies which received charters to build tracks between Ottawa and northern Vermont.The promoters failed to lay any track, mainly due to the high cost of bridging the St. Lawrence River.