Hays is credited with the formation of the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP), a plan he had to create a second transcontinental railroad within the borders of Canada.

In 1889, he became Vice-President of the Wabash Railroad and remained as such until 1896, when he became General Manager of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) of Canada.

He received the Order of the Rising Sun, third class, from the Emperor of Japan in 1907 for assistance he gave the Imperial Government Railways.

[4] When Hays became General Manager of GTR in 1896, it was near bankruptcy and under-performing its rival, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR).

Hays wanted to capitalize on the trend by constructing a transcontinental railroad, within the borders of Canada, to run 3,600 miles from Moncton, New Brunswick, to Prince Rupert, British Columbia.

[5] In 1900, he introduced a proposal to extend the lines of the Grand Trunk Western, an American subsidiary, from Chicago to Winnipeg, "and thence to the Pacific."

Later that year, Hays left GTR to work for Southern Pacific, but a change in ownership there lead to his resignation.

He returned to the GTR to find that the president, Sir Charles Rivers Wilson, had convinced the board of directors to pursue the transcontinental railway.

[1] This was to result in the GTP's being starved of traffic; even though it was arguably the best of the three, it ultimately failed to attract enough freight to make it profitable.

[7] After construction on the GTP began in 1905, Hays started the Grand Trunk Pacific Development Company in order to purchase thousands of acres of land on which he established town sites along the route of the railway, including Melville, Saskatchewan, which was named after him.

[1][8] He hired the famed architect Francis Rattenbury from CPR to design a grand hotel, the Château Prince Rupert, at the westernmost stop on the railway.

Hays finally gave into the workers' demands but failed to re-hire 250 previously fired strikers despite promising to do so.

In addition, Grand Trunk, which would be leasing the NTR from the government, was responsible for paying back the construction cost of that line.

Hays, his wife, Clara, his daughter, Orian (see source note), his son-in-law, Thornton Davidson (son of Charles Peers Davidson), his secretary, Mr. Vivian Payne, and a maid, Miss Mary Anne Perreault, shared a deluxe suite (cabin B69) on B Deck, also known as the Bridge Deck.

Hays's body was recovered from the waters of the North Atlantic by the Minia, and he was buried at Mount Royal Cemetery in Montreal.

It was later alleged that Hays had deceived the company's London directors in 1903 by committing them to conditions in the railway's agreements with the Canadian government for the building of the GTP to which they did not agree.

[7] The railroad car in which his body was transported back to Montreal is preserved at the Canadian Railway Museum, near Delson, Quebec.

There is a statue of him in Prince Rupert, and the city of Melville, Saskatchewan, is named after him,[13] as is the village of Haysport, British Columbia.