The Brotherhood of the Footboard was organized in 1863 in Detroit, USA; in 1864 it was renamed the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers (B. of L.E.). In 1865 it began organizing in Canada. The local units of the union were known as Divisions. Each Division elected a representative to a General Committee of Adjustment, which negotiated wages and working conditions with the employer. The General Committee of Adjustment met triennially to elect a General Chairman and other officers who administered contract negotiations. The Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) initially negotiated separate agreements with its locomotive engineers for its Pacific, Western, Central, and Eastern divisions. By 1911 these were consolidated into two bargaining units, Western Lines and Eastern Lines, with the dividing line just west of Thunder Bay, Ontario. In 1950 the General Committee of Adjustment divided administratively into those two units. For many years the office of the General Chairman for the Western Lines was located in Winnipeg, Manitoba. In the 1970s it moved to Calgary, Alberta. In the 1990s the office of the General Chairman for the Eastern Lines moved to Calgary as well. In 2004 the BLE merged with the Canadian divisions of the International Union of Teamsters to form the Teamsters Canada Rail Conference. For further information see History of the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers. - Cleveland : the Brotherhood, 1998.