Formed in 1872 by a merger of a number of Preconfederation railways such as the Nova Scotia Railway, the Intercolonial Railway (ICR) was a government owned railway system and the biggest in the Maritimes. It briefly became the Canadian Government Railway in 1915 and then evolved into the Canadian National Railway. Some ICR equipment ended up on the DAR, most notably a number of standard gauge ICR locomotives traded for Windsor and Annapolis Railway broad gauge locomotives in 1875 as part of a government sponsored move to standardize gauges in the region.