DCHP-1 Online
transcontinental 
1 n. either of the two railways that cross Canada.
- 1877 [We say that in the first place, without the trans-continental railway British Columbia is of no use to Canada, nor Canada to British Columbia.]
- 1907 Dealing with the immense expenditure on the G.T.P. transcontinental in excess of the original estimates, the Toronto News puts the case very fairly, as follows. . . .
- 1955 Yet the grain that train carries moves for exactly the same number of cents per bushel, a rate fixed by the rigid agreement shortly after the first trans-continental opened for business
2 n. a train on a trans-Canada run.
- 1920 . . . at Winnipeg the transcontinental was boarded by one Bill Panns, a rancher on his way back to the foothills after two years in a German prison.
- 1964 "You heard the one about the squaw on the trans-continental?"
- 1877 [We say that in the first place, without the trans-continental railway British Columbia is of no use to Canada, nor Canada to British Columbia.]