In 1896, the Laurier government set out to build a second transcontinental railroad, encouraged by turn-of-the-century prosperity and the need to carry prairie wheat to shipping ports. On July 29, 1903, the federal government reached an agreement with the Grand Trunk Pacific, a subsidiary of the Grand Trunk Railway, to build a railroad from Moncton to the Pacific coast in British Columbia. Work began in 1908 at Rivière-Bleue and Saint-Éleuthère. The railway spurred the development of what is now called the Transcontinental region and brought a period of flourishing growth to Québec despite the project's great cost. It connected Saint-Éleuthère and Rivière-Bleue with the rest of the country, led to the opening of the parishes of Sully, Estcourt, and Saint-Marc-sur-le-Long, and helped give rise to a logging industry that quickly became a source of jobs as new forest areas became accessible by rail. For many years, the National Transcontinental network was Canada's premier railway.