In 1854 the Grand Trunk Railway was awarded the contract to build a 30 m Esplanade, a timber cribwork retaining wall with land filling, south of Front Street. By 1857, railway lines had been built on top of the Esplanade and trains ran as far as the Queen's Wharf. When land filling operations by the Grand Trunk ceased in 1858, the City was left to complete the job of filling the old shoreline north of the train corridor.