THE Canadian government had cheerfully bankrolled Fleming’s meticulous engineering in the populous east, but felt less generous towards the empty lands in the west. Sandford refused to cut corners, and for four years he was out in the cold, though back in favour in time for the line’s opening ceremony in 1885.

Meanwhile, he successfully lobbied for an undersea Pacific telegraph cable from Vancouver to Australia and New Zealand, completed in 1902, and after turning up for a train in Ireland marked ‘pm’ only to find it had left in the morning, put forward the first detailed proposal for a worldwide time standard using one-hour time-zones and a twenty-four hour clock.

Amidst all this, Sandford brought up seven children with his wife Jeanie, started a cotton factory, co-founded the Royal Canadian Institute, served in the Canadian militia, and was for thirty-five years Chancellor of Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.* He was knighted in 1897 for his astonishing contribution to Canada and the British Empire.