James Leveson Ross, of Montreal, was a Scottish-born Canadian civil engineer, businessman and philanthropist. He established his fortune predominantly through railway construction, notably for the Canadian Pacific Railway, of which he was the major shareholder, and advising Lord Strathcona on railway projects in Argentina and Chile. He oversaw the electrification of street railways in Montreal, Toronto, Winnipeg, Saint John, Birmingham (England), Mexico City and São Paulo. He was president of the Dominion Bridge Company, the Mexican Power Company etc. He was Honorary Lieutenant-Colonel of the 17th Duke of York's Royal Canadian Hussars and Governor of McGill University and the Royal Victoria Hospital. He was an avid collector of the Old Masters and president of the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. He owned several yachts including two named Glencairn and became the first Canadian to be made a member of the Royal Yacht Squadron. He funded the construction of the Ross Memorial Wing at the Royal Vic; the Ross Memorial Hospital and Nurse's Home at Lindsay, Ontario; and the Protestant Hospital for the Insane at Verdun, Quebec. He lived in the Golden Square Mile.

The Victoria Railway was a 55.52-mile (89.35 km) long Canadian railway that operated in Central Ontario. Construction under Chief Engineer James Ross began in 1874 from Lindsay, Ontario, with authority to build through Victoria County to Haliburton, Ontario, to which it opened on November 24, 1878. The line is best known as having been built by a large group of Icelandic immigrants, who found the Kinmount winters too rough, and so they all moved to Gimli, Manitoba. The line became part of the Midland Railway of Canada and then later part of the Canadian National Railways. The line was abandoned completely by the early 1990s.