"The railroad was a major construction project in the late 1800’s in the River Inhabitants area, for it involved the construction of a huge trestle bridge over a fairly wide part of the Inhabitants River, near the mouth.  During the construction of that bridge, a donkey engine steam engineer was drowned in the river, when his engine toppled of its tracks. Both the engine and his body were recovered many kilometers down the river, which shows the strength of that current.  My late uncle, Percy James Proctor, also claimed that a Chinese immigrant worker also died during the construction and was buried in an unmarked grave beside the railway."
​                                                                                               excerpt from Lester Morgan, "A Brief History of River Inhabitants," revised  2017.
​

,(below): Route of the former Cape Breton Railway, St. Peter's Branch,  here Canadian National Railway : Canso, Nova Scotia. (Ottawa: Dept of Energy, Mines and Resources) 1976. 

"....By 1887 plans were under way to extend the Jntercolonial Railway from the mainland side of the Strait of Canso to Cape Breton Island. In anticipation of this, various commercial and political groups in Cape Breton had proposed three potential routes for the island portion of the railway, all of which would originate in Point Tupper.
The first was a western route through Inverness and Victoria Counties (Whycocomagh, Nyanza, Baddeck, etc.) to North Sydney The second, an eastern route, would pass through Port Hawkesbury, St. Peter’s, Johnstown, and Big Pond, before terminating in Sydney.
The third was a route through the center of the island. This would pass through Orangedale, lona, Grand Narrows, Christmas 
Island and Boisdale before ending in North Sydney...."       
                                                       from : Rannie Gillis,    "Cape Breton has a long history of fighting to keep the railway" Cape Breton Post. 1999 (issue unspec)
                                                                   http://grandnarrows.com/about-us/news/56-cape-breton-has-a-long-history-of-fighting-to-keep-the-railway.html

Cape Breton Railway Extension Company Limited   (1884-1902)
Cape Breton Railway Company Limited   (after 1902) 
On 24 November 1890, the Cape Breton Railway was officially opened for regular traffic. [National Post, 24 November 2000] 
 Though once intended to connect the Canso Straight with the port of Louisbourg, the line never went beyond St. Peter's. When taken over by the Canadian National Railways in the 1920s, the Cape Breton Railway became known as St. Peter's Branch. The Cape Breton Railway ran from St. Peters, Richmond County, to its junction with the main line track of the Intercolonial Railway, called St Peter's Junction,  at​ Point Tupper, a distance of 31.0 miles (49.9 km). ​

Distance from St. Peters to Pt. Tupper (miles)
0.0    St. Peters station 
6.0    Sporting Mountain station 
12.0   Grande Anse station 
16.3   Whiteside station 
19.0   Basin Road station (summit) 
21.0   Evanston station 
23.0  Chapel Road station 
31.0   Point Tupper
Source:   History of Railway Companies in Nova Scotia website: http://ns1758.ca/rail/railways.html#cbcns-rail ​

In 1963, CNR commences to abandon the St.Peter's Branch of the former Cape Breton Railway:

"CN is seeking permission to abandon a 25-mile branch line which is
losing money at the rate of nearly $20,000 a year. The line runs
from St. Peter's Junction to the community of St. Peter's, N.S.
Its chief source of traffic was the Mindamar copper, lead and zinc
mine at Stirling. The mine ceased operations in 1957. "

 W. L. Pharoah (ed.)  "Notes and News," Canadian Rail. (No.143
April 1963)p. 81.  [published by the Canadian Railroad Historical Association]