It connected the towns of Calgary and Strathcona (also called South Edmonton).
Initially, the northern terminus of the line was the old wooden Strathcona train station, a replica of which the Calgary and Edmonton Railway Station Museum operates, until the Edmonton, Yukon and Pacific Railway company was created to run a shortline across the North Saskatchewan River in 1902.
The line's primary raison d'être was to move in settlers from the east coast to Edmonton where they would congregate at immigration halls and land titles offices before setting out into the rural areas to start homesteads.
The line was later acquired by the Canadian Pacific Railway, and Strathcona merged with Edmonton in 1912.
The line itself still exists, and although train passenger service was discontinued in 1985, the Edmonton Radial Railway Society operates vintage street cars from Old Strathcona across the High Level Bridge to stops south of Jasper Avenue and near the Legislature.