Québec - Gaspé
Jonas Wallgren
I have some questions about trains in the area between Québec and Gaspé.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some lines:
A = Québec - along Saint Lawrence (bay? river?) - along Matapédia River - to
the southest.
B = Québec - up into and along the Notre Dame Mountains - along the Maine
border - to the southeast.
C = Matapédia - Gaspé
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Some maps:
The Times atlas of the world, 1977:
A is there, B is there, C is there.
National Geographic,
"Close-up Canada - Quebec/Newfoundland", May 1980:
A is there, B is gone between Québec and Edmundstone but still exists from
Edmundston to the southeast, C is there.
National Geographic,
"The making of America - Northern approaches", February 1985 and
"The making of Canada - Quebec", March 1991:
A is there, B is gone, C is there
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My questions:
Are these maps accurate, or did some parts of the lines disappear earlier?
Are there or have there been other lines in this area?
When were these lines buildt? Why (passenger, freight)?
What kind of traffic is there on the lines that still exist (passenger,
freight)?
Is there any literature available describing these lines?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Jonas Wallgren | j...@ida.liu.se
Department of Computer and Information Science |
Linkoping University |-------------------------------
S-581 83 Linkoping |Everything that is systematized
Sweden |becomes aesthetic --- B. Becher
Bill Linley
Tom Box
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Some lines:
>
>A = Quibec - along Saint Lawrence (bay? river?) - along Matapidia River - to
> the southest.
>B = Quibec - up into and along the Notre Dame Mountains - along the Maine
> border - to the southeast.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Some maps:
>
>The Times atlas of the world, 1977:
>A is there, B is there, C is there.
>
>National Geographic,
>"Close-up Canada - Quebec/Newfoundland", May 1980:
>Edmundston to the southeast, C is there.
>
>National Geographic,
>"The making of America - Northern approaches", February 1985 and
>"The making of Canada - Quebec", March 1991:
>A is there, B is gone, C is there
>
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>My questions:
>
>Are these maps accurate, or did some parts of the lines disappear earlier?
>Are there or have there been other lines in this area?
>When were these lines buildt? Why (passenger, freight)?
>What kind of traffic is there on the lines that still exist (passenger,
>freight)?
>Is there any literature available describing these lines?
>
to Riviere-du-Loup was originally part of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR).
The Grand Trunk was the first major railway system built in Canada
(previous lines were mostly short portage routes linking two
bodies of water). The GTR ran from Riviere-du-Loup through Levis,
Montreal, and Toronto to Sarnia, in southwestern Ontario, and was
later extended to Chicago. It also had a line to Portland, Maine.
Most of the Grand Trunk was built in the 1850s. I'm not sure of
the exact date of construction of the Levis/Riviere-du-Loup line.
The GTR was a priviate company, owned mainly by British interests.
The rest of A was originally part of the Intercolonial Railway (ICR).
This ran along the south shore of the St. Lawrence from Riviere-du-Loup
to Mont-Joli, then turned south through Matapedia, Campbellton,
Bathurst, Newcastle, Moncton, and Truro, terminating in Halifax.
The Intercolonial was built as a condition of Nova Scotia and New
Brunswick joining with Quebec and Ontario to form the Dominion of
Canada in 1867. It was owned by the Government of Canada, and was
built between 1869 and 1876. It was built through the eastern part
of New Brunswick, rather than through the more populated
Saint John valley farther west, because there were fears of an
American invasion, so the authorities did not want the line to be
too close to the Maine-New Brunswick border.
The Levis/Riviere-du-Loup branch of the GTR had seen very little
traffic before the construction of the ICR, but it now became more
important. It was sold by the GTR to the ICR in 1879.
B was originally part of the National Transcontinental Railway (NTR).
This line began in Moncton, ran diagonally across New Brunswick to
Edmundston, into Quebec on the line you mention, across the St.
Lawrence on the Quebec Bridge from Charny to Ste-Foy, through
northern Quebec and Ontario via La Tuque, Senneterre, Cochrane,
Nakina, and Sioux Lookout, as far as Winnipeg, where it joined
the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway (GTP), which ran from Winnipeg
through Saskatoon and Edmonton to Prince Rupert on the Pacific
coast.
The NTR and GTP were part of a scheme to build a second transcontinental
railway across Canada, to compete with the Canadian Pacific Railway.
The GTP was built by a subsidiary of the GTR, while the NTR was built
by the Government of Canada. The NTR was to be leased to the GTP
after it was built.
The NTR was built between 1906 and 1915 (except for the Quebec Bridge,
which collapsed twice during construction, in 1907 and 1916, and
wasn't completed until 1917). Much of the route of the NTR
passed through completely unpopulated territory, and had no chance
of being profitable. The GTP, itself in financial difficulty,
refused to lease it from the government. The government therefore
operated the NTR itself, combining its management with the ICR
under the name Canadian Government Railways (CGR). Shortly afterward,
a third transcontinental line, the Canadian Northern, went bankrupt
and was taken over by the government. It was merged with the CGR
to form Canadian National Railways (CNR). A little later, the CNR
took over the GTP, then the GTR.
Line C, from Matapedia to Gaspe, was built by a number
of private companies, with a tangled corporate history too complex
to explain here. Construction began in 1885, and the first section
of the line, from Matapedia to Caplan, was opened in 1893. The
line reached Gaspe in 1912. After completion, the line was
owned by two companies, the Quebec Oriental and the Atlantic, Quebec
& Western, and was sold to Canadian National in 1929.
All of A and C still exist. B still exists from Moncton through
Edmundston, to a point called Pelletier, about 100 km west of
Edmundston by rail. B has been abandoned from Pelletier to
a point on the south shore of the St. Lawrence near Quebec.
Relatively recently (1970s ?), the CNR built a line from Pelletier
on line B to St. Andre Junction (just west of Riviere-du-Loup) on
line A, allowing the abandonment of B from Quebec to Pelletier.
All of these lines had both freight and passenger trains at one
time (except the St-Andre/Pelletier cutoff, which never had
regular passenger service), though freight has (almost?)
always been the main source of revenue.
The main route for freight is along A from Levis to St-Andre Jct,
along the new line from St-Andre to Pelletier, along B from
Pelletier to Moncton, then along A from Moncton to Halifax.
Much of this is through freight from the port of Halifax to
Montreal and points west. The remainder of A is a secondary main
line, with some freight traffic. C is a lightly used branch line.
There is freight from a paper mill in Chandler, but none east of
there, so CN wants to abandon the easternmost part of this line.
It is possible that CN will try to sell C and the portion of A from
Moncton to St-Andre to a short-line operator.
There are now no passenger trains on B. There is one passenger train
per day (6 days/week) on A, from Montreal to Matapedia. 3 days/week
this train continues on A to Halifax, and the other 3 days it goes
on C to Gaspe. (On the day this train operates to Gaspe, there is
a Montreal-Halifax train over another route). This is likely to
change in the near future. The train to Gaspe and the Montreal-Halifax
train mentioned in parentheses will probably be cancelled, and the
Montreal-Halifax train over A increased in frequency to 6/week.
As for other lines in this area, there is the Canada & Gulf Terminal
Railway, from Mont-Joli to Matane, along the south shore of the St.
Lawrence. This was privately-owned until recently, but is now
part of CN.
There was also the Temiscouata Railway from Riviere-du-Loup to
Edmundston, also privately-owned originally, but acquired at some
point (not sure exactly when) by CN. This was a shorter route
between these cities than the St-Andre/Pelletier cutoff + NTR,
but the Temiscouata was a poorly-engineered route, and has been
abandoned.
The early history of many of these lines is covered in
a two-volume history of the Canadian National Railways, written
by G.R. Stevens and published in 1962.
Tom Box
CZ...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA
m00...@mbvms.mitre.org
Basically, yes. Line "A" is there. Line "C" is there, although for how
much longer is problematical. Line "B" is partially there. See discussion
below.
> Are there or have there been other lines in this area?
Yes, many. See partial discussion below.
> When were these lines buildt? Why (passenger, freight)?
Line "A" from Levis (across the Saint Lawrence River from Quebec) to Riviere
du Loup was part of the original Grand Trunk Railway from the 1850s or so.
From Riviere du Loup eastward to Mont Joli, along the Matapedia River Valley
to Matapedia, through Campbellton and on to Newcastle, Moncton and eventually
Halifax was the Intercolonial Railway. The whole story of these lines would
fill a book (If you're really interested, I suggest trying to get a copy of
Stevens' two-volume History of the Canadian National Railways, published
circa 1960.), and such books have been written. At the risk of getting flamed
for leaving out some details in the interests of not inordinately wasting
time or bandwidth, here is a summation of the story.
Before 1867, Canada as we know it did not exist. The present Provinces of
Ontario and Quebec had been united in a loose union called "Canada", and it
and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba
and British Columbia all exist as separate and independent Colonies of the
British Empire. The Colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
were to varying degrees interested in construction of a railway linking
them together. Years of negotiating and arguing amongst themselves and with
the British government (whom the colonials unsuccessfully tried to get to pay
for the project) resulted in an agreement for the construction of the Grand
Trunk Railway leading from Windsor [Ontario across the river from Detroit
Michigan] through Toronto and Montreal to Portland Maine, with a branch from
Richmond, Quebec to Levis and Riviere du Loup. The portion as far as Levis made
sense, but the trackage from there to Riviere du Loup would be totally useless
until connections farther east were built. The Grand Trunk was a private
corporation, but it borrowings for construction were guaranteed by the Colonial
Government, and outright loans and grants to it were also made.
The above is a GROSS oversimplification of a very long and complicated process
of negotiation and construction.
The Grand Trunk was completed about 1860, perhaps a little later. A decade or
two later (sorry, I'm terrible on dates and the books are at home) the Colonies
of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia completed the Intercolonial Railway from
Riviere du Loup eastward to Halifax. It was a 100% Government financed line.
The Grand Trunk later sold the trackage from Levis to Riviere du Loup to the
Intercolonial, which then built a shorter and more direct connection from Levis
through Drummondville to Saint-Hyacinthe on the Grand Trunk much nearer to
Montreal. It obtained trackage rights on the Grand Trunk from Saint-Hyacinthe
(Actually Saint-Rosalie Junction I think) to Montreal, and ran through trains
between Halifax and Montreal.
That was the situation until circa 1920. Between about 1900 and 1920, the Grand
Trunk Railway and the Canadian Government (of course since 1867, Canada had
existed as a "Dominion", for all practical purposes a self-governing nation,
including the same area it does today except for Newfoundland and Labrador
which was added in 1948) had conducted rather stormy negotiations which finally
led to an agreement between the two parties to jointly build a transcontinental
railroad in competition with the Canadian Pacific Railway (completed in 1887 if
my memory is correct) and with the Canadian Northern Railway which was doing the
same thing at the same time. The Canadian Northern was privately financed, but
depended heavily upon loans from the Canadian Government. I'll talk in a moment
more about the route of this new joint Government-Grand Trunk line in a moment.
For now, just understand that the debts incurred in construction of the western
half, the inability of the Grand Trunk to live up to the part of the agreement
which called for it to assume operation of the eastern half which had been built
by the Government, coupled with the drying up of the World money supply
(especially in Great Britain upon which the Grand Trunk depended most heavily)
due to World War I, caused the Grand Trunk to fail. The Canadian Government
foreclosed and took over the railway in an incredibly shabby act of corporate
murder which was nothing short of unjustified confiscation of private property,
with the final takeover occurring in 1922.
The Government had in the meantime also foreclosed on the Canadian Northern
Railway in an only marginally more justifiable confiscation. It had joined
this property with that of the Intercolonial (to which it had fallen heir when
the Colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had joined the Confederation in
1867), some other small publicly-owned lines, and the National Transcontinental
(this was the name unofficially given to the eastern portion of the joint
Government-Grand Trunk transcontinental line, of which more later) into the
Canadian Government Railways. At about the time that they took over the Grand
Trunk, the whole business was then reconstituted as the Canadian National
Railways and so it exists today. Again, all this is GROSS oversimplification
of a very complicated and convoluted history.
The line today is the passenger line, used by VIA's "Ocean" and "Chaleur".
The "Ocean" operates three days a week between Montreal and Halifax (Sunday,
Wednesday and Friday from Montreal). It has recently been re-equipped with
(mostly) ex-Canadian Pacific Budd stainless steel cars, including domes. It is
one of the best trains on the continent from a passenger's point of view. About
the only negative feature is that is passes through the very scenic Matapedia
Valley in the middle of the night.
The "Chaleur" runs three days a week (Monday, Thursday and Saturday from
Montreal at the same time as the "Ocean") between Montreal and Gaspe. It is
similarly equipped. The name "Chaleur" derives from the "Baie de Chaleur"
which is the body of water between the Gaspe Peninsula and Prince Edward Island.
This train runs on what you have referred to as Line "A" as far as Matapedia
and on Line "C" from there to Gaspe. Which brings us to Line "C".
I don't recall who built it, but it was a private company - I think in fact
two separate companies each built part of the line. I also don't recall when
it was built, but relatively recently. I don't recall by what process it became
part of the Canadian National System. It is an "endangered species", at
least beyond Chandler. There is *NO* freight business at the present time
beyond Chandler. Canadian National has tried to abandon the line (at least
beyond Chandler), but was ordered to keep it in place in order to preserve the
passenger train, which has (or had) some influential friends in Parliament. It
is well used, and does bring a lot of tourists to the area, which badly needs
all the money it can get.
Line "B" is part of the National Transcontinental. Recall that I said that the
Canadian Government and the Grand Trunk were to jointly build a transcontinental
railway in the 1910s. The portion east of Winnipeg was to be built by the
Government, taken over and operated by the Grand Trunk when complete. It was
intentionally built through totally undeveloped areas (across northern Ontario
and Quebec through Hearst, Cochrane, La Tuque) as an attempt to provide access
and thus foster development. It turned south at La Tuque and came to Quebec,
where the "Quebec Bridge" was built to take it across the Saint Lawrence. The
construction of that Bridge (the first two bridges built collapsed before
completion with much loss of life) would make a book in itself. Once on the
south side of the Saint Lawrence, the line followed an incredibly twisting
course through Quebec to Edmunston NB and thence on to Moncton where it
ended. This line was completed I think in 1911 or 1913, with the final work
being the Quebec Bridge. When complete, it had essentially no traffic as the
country it passed through was basically uninhabited. The Grand Trunk refused
to take it over as agreed, and this was one of the motivating factors in the
Government takeover of the Grand Trunk. (Again, GROSS oversimplification.)
In recent years, this line had varying kinds of passenger service; mixed
trains over individual divisions, then RDCs running Quebec <> Edmunston and
Edmunston <> Moncton, and even a through train between Montreal and Sydney NS
(the "Cabot") that went that way for a few years. In the 1970s, a connection
was built from the Line "A" at Pelletier to a point on Line "B" near the
Quebec - New Brunswick border, and this route became the principal CN freight
route, which it remains today. Not long afterward, passenger service between
Quebec and Edmunston on the old NTR line was discontinued and the line was
eventually torn up. RDC service between Edmunston and Moncton remained until
the massive VIA cutbacks of January, 1990. There is now no passenger service
on what remains of Line "B".
> What kind of traffic is there on the lines that still exist (passenger,
> freight)?
I already related the passenger service. Perhaps I should also say that VIA
also runs the "Atlantic" with similar equipment between Montreal and Halifax
via Sherbrooke, Maine and Saint John NB on three days a week (the same days
the "Chaleur" runs). It too is an endangered species as the Canadian Pacific
Railway has requested permission to abandon all its lines east of Sherbrooke.
But that's another whole book, and you didn't ask about it!
Almost all through freight on the Canadian National runs via Edmunston. It has
used the Pelletier cut-off since that was built in the late 70s. A very little
through freight and some locals run via Line "A". There is NO freight on Line
"C" beyond Chandler, where there is a large paper mill. There are also several
large paper mills along Line "A" in New Brunswick that generate a lot of freight
business. The bulk of the through freigh, on Line "B", now is carried in
containers, and solid container trains run frequently on that line.
> Is there any literature available describing these lines?
Lots. Try the two-volume history I already mentioned. It's probably out of
print, but perhaps a large library could get you a copy.
I unfortunately have to leave now - I'm already late - and I don't have time
to read this over, so I apologize for typos, etc. I'll read it again tomorrow
and correct any glaring errors or omissions.
Len Bachelder m00...@mbvms.mitre.org
Tom Box
>In article <1994Jun13....@ida.liu.se>, jo...@ida.liu.se (Jonas Wallgren) writes:
>> Hi!
>>
>>
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Some lines:
>>
>> A = Quibec - along Saint Lawrence (bay? river?) - along Matapidia River - to
>> the southest.
>> B = Quibec - up into and along the Notre Dame Mountains - along the Maine
>> border - to the southeast.
>> -------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>At the risk of getting flamed
>for leaving out some details in the interests of not inordinately wasting
>time or bandwidth, here is a summation of the story.
Certainly no flames from here. Just a few nitpicks and additions to
Len's usual fine account.
>
>Before 1867, Canada as we know it did not exist. The present Provinces of
>Ontario and Quebec had been united in a loose union called "Canada", and it
>and New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland, Prince Edward Island, Manitoba
>and British Columbia all exist as separate and independent Colonies of the
>British Empire.
From 1841 to 1867 Ontario and Quebec were more closely united (in
their governmental structure) than either before or since. And
Manitoba shouldn't be part of the list of colonies existing before
Confederation in 1867. But I'm straying from rec.railroad topics...
>The Colonies of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia
>were to varying degrees interested in construction of a railway linking
>them together. Years of negotiating and arguing amongst themselves and with
>the British government (whom the colonials unsuccessfully tried to get to pay
>for the project) resulted in an agreement for the construction of the Grand
>Trunk Railway leading from Windsor [Ontario across the river from Detroit
>Michigan] through Toronto and Montreal to Portland Maine, with a branch from
>Richmond, Quebec to Levis and Riviere du Loup. The portion as far as Levis made
>sense, but the trackage from there to Riviere du Loup would be totally useless
>until connections farther east were built. The Grand Trunk was a private
>corporation, but it borrowings for construction were guaranteed by the Colonial
>Government, and outright loans and grants to it were also made.
I should just clarify that New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were not
involved in the construction of the Grand Trunk. And though the
original plans were for the GTR to go to Windsor, this was modified
before construction began, and the GTR went to Sarnia instead.
A rival line, the Great Western, built from Niagara Falls to
Windsor, with a branch from Hamilton to Toronto. THe Grand Trunk
took over the Great Western in the 1870s(?).
>
>The above is a GROSS oversimplification of a very long and complicated process
>of negotiation and construction.
>
>The Grand Trunk was completed about 1860, perhaps a little later.
Most of the GTR main line was completed by 1856, and the Victoria
Bridge (across the St. Lawrence River at Montreal) in 1859. The
Levis/Riviere-du-Loup branch may have been completed a little
later.
>A decade or
>two later (sorry, I'm terrible on dates and the books are at home) the Colonies
>of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia completed the Intercolonial Railway from
>Riviere du Loup eastward to Halifax. It was a 100% Government financed line.
Actually, most of this was built by the federal government. I
think Nova Scotia had already built a line from Halifax to Truro,
which was incorporated into the ICR, and New Brunswick had built
an east-west line from Saint John to Shediac, a short portion
of which (near Moncton) was incorporated in the ICR main line.
But most of the line from Riviere-du-Loup to Truro was built by
the federal government from 1869 to 1876.
>The Grand Trunk later sold the trackage from Levis to Riviere du Loup to the
>Intercolonial, which then built a shorter and more direct connection from Levis
>through Drummondville to Saint-Hyacinthe on the Grand Trunk much nearer to
>Montreal. It obtained trackage rights on the Grand Trunk from Saint-Hyacinthe
>(Actually Saint-Rosalie Junction I think) to Montreal, and ran through trains
>between Halifax and Montreal.
The Levis/Ste-Rosalie line was built by a separate company, the
Drummond County Railway, and later bought by the ICR.
>
>That was the situation until circa 1920. Between about 1900 and 1920, the Grand
>Trunk Railway and the Canadian Government (of course since 1867, Canada had
>existed as a "Dominion", for all practical purposes a self-governing nation,
>including the same area it does today except for Newfoundland and Labrador
>which was added in 1948) finally
1949
>had conducted rather stormy negotiations which
>led to an agreement between the two parties to jointly build a transcontinental
>railroad in competition with the Canadian Pacific Railway (completed in 1887 if
>my memory is correct) and with the Canadian Northern Railway which was doing the
>same thing at the same time. The Canadian Northern was privately financed, but
>depended heavily upon loans from the Canadian Government. I'll talk in a moment
>more about the route of this new joint Government-Grand Trunk line in a moment.
>For now, just understand that the debts incurred in construction of the western
>half, the inability of the Grand Trunk to live up to the part of the agreement
>which called for it to assume operation of the eastern half which had been built
>by the Government, coupled with the drying up of the World money supply
>(especially in Great Britain upon which the Grand Trunk depended most heavily)
>due to World War I, caused the Grand Trunk to fail. The Canadian Government
>foreclosed and took over the railway in an incredibly shabby act of corporate
>murder which was nothing short of unjustified confiscation of private property,
>with the final takeover occurring in 1922.
Officially not until 1923. The takeover of the GTR by the government,
and the decision of an arbitration board that its common stock was
worthless, were certainly controversial. I don't claim to be an
expert in this topic, but here's my reading of the situation.
The subsidiary Grand Trunk Pacific (from Winnipeg to Prince Rupert)
was bankrupt, and its takeover by the government was justifiable
(leaving aside philosphical questions of public vs. private
ownership). The parent Grand Trunk Railway was in financial difficulty,
but probably could have survived as an independent road. Its
takeover came about because the newly-formed Canadian National
Railways needed a strong network in Ontario and Quebec in order
to be a viable competitor of Canadian Pacific. (CN already had
the ex-Canadian Northern lines, but the CNoR was weak in eastern
Canada, compared to the GTR and CPR.) The takeover of the GTR was
probably inevitable. The big question is whether the shareholders
deserved compensation.
>
>The Government had in the meantime also foreclosed on the Canadian Northern
>Railway in an only marginally more justifiable confiscation.
I can't agree with this. One of the reasons the takeover of the GTR
was so controversial was that the government _did_ compensate
the owners of the Canadian Northern, so the treatment of the
two railways was seen as inequitable. The shareholders of the
GTR were mostly in Britain, and the railway had benefitted from
Canadian government loans and grants for almost 70 years, so the
GTR had few friends in high places in Ottawa. In contrast, the
CNoR was owned in Canada, mostly by two men, William Mackenzie and
Donald Mann. They had plenty of political clout. What's more,
they were deeply indebted to the Canadian Bank of Commerce, and
seizure of the CNoR by the government without compensation might
have lead to a failure of the bank (the Canadian banking system is
very oligopolistic, and failure of a major bank would have been
a catastrophe).
>It had joined
>this property with that of the Intercolonial (to which it had fallen heir when
>the Colonies of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia had joined the Confederation in
>1867),
As I said before, most of the ICR was built by the federal government
after Confederation.
>some other small publicly-owned lines, and the National Transcontinental
>(this was the name unofficially given to the eastern portion of the joint
>Government-Grand Trunk transcontinental line, of which more later) into the
>Canadian Government Railways. At about the time that they took over the Grand
>Trunk, the whole business was then reconstituted as the Canadian National
>Railways and so it exists today. Again, all this is GROSS oversimplification
>of a very complicated and convoluted history.
Strictly, speaking, the Canadian Northern was never part of the
Canadian Government Railways. But Len warned us he was over-
simplifying, and the details are probably only of interest to
corporate historians.
>
>The line today is the passenger line, used by VIA's "Ocean" and "Chaleur".
In case readers have lost track, this is the Intercolonial line
(line A in the original poster's terminology) we're speaking of.
>The "Ocean" operates three days a week between Montreal and Halifax (Sunday,
>Wednesday and Friday from Montreal). It has recently been re-equipped with
>(mostly) ex-Canadian Pacific Budd stainless steel cars, including domes. It is
>one of the best trains on the continent from a passenger's point of view. About
>the only negative feature is that is passes through the very scenic Matapedia
>Valley in the middle of the night.
>
>The "Chaleur" runs three days a week (Monday, Thursday and Saturday from
>Montreal at the same time as the "Ocean") between Montreal and Gaspe. It is
>similarly equipped. The name "Chaleur" derives from the "Baie de Chaleur"
>which is the body of water between the Gaspe Peninsula and Prince Edward Island.
Between the Gaspe Peninsula and northeast New Brunswick. The Gulf
of St. Lawrence is between Gaspe and PEI.
>This train runs on what you have referred to as Line "A" as far as Matapedia
>and on Line "C" from there to Gaspe. Which brings us to Line "C".
>
>I don't recall who built it, but it was a private company - I think in fact
>two separate companies each built part of the line. I also don't recall when
>it was built, but relatively recently. I don't recall by what process it became
>part of the Canadian National System. It is an "endangered species", at
>least beyond Chandler. There is *NO* freight business at the present time
>beyond Chandler. Canadian National has tried to abandon the line (at least
>beyond Chandler), but was ordered to keep it in place in order to preserve the
>passenger train, which has (or had) some influential friends in Parliament. It
>is well used, and does bring a lot of tourists to the area, which badly needs
>all the money it can get.
Most of the credit for saving this line from the last round of
cutbacks belongs to a lobby group called Rural Dignity, which
fights for the maintenance of services (not just trains, but things
like full-service post offices, as well) to the less-populated
regions of the country. It's headed by a woman from Gaspe named
Cynthia Patterson.
>
>Line "B" is part of the National Transcontinental. Recall that I said that the
>Canadian Government and the Grand Trunk were to jointly build a transcontinental
>railway in the 1910s. The portion east of Winnipeg was to be built by the
>Government, taken over and operated by the Grand Trunk when complete. It was
>intentionally built through totally undeveloped areas (across northern Ontario
>and Quebec through Hearst, Cochrane, La Tuque) as an attempt to provide access
>and thus foster development. It turned south at La Tuque and came to Quebec,
>where the "Quebec Bridge" was built to take it across the Saint Lawrence. The
>construction of that Bridge (the first two bridges built collapsed before
>completion with much loss of life) would make a book in itself. Once on the
>south side of the Saint Lawrence, the line followed an incredibly twisting
>course through Quebec to Edmunston NB and thence on to Moncton where it
>ended. This line was completed I think in 1911 or 1913, with the final work
>being the Quebec Bridge.
Most of the line was finished by 1915. World War I had already
begun, causing financial problems for the GTR. The Quebec
Bridge was opened in 1917.
>When complete, it had essentially no traffic as the
>country it passed through was basically uninhabited. The Grand Trunk refused
>to take it over as agreed, and this was one of the motivating factors in the
>Government takeover of the Grand Trunk. (Again, GROSS oversimplification.)
>In recent years, this line had varying kinds of passenger service; mixed
>trains over individual divisions, then RDCs running Quebec <> Edmunston and
>Edmunston <> Moncton, and even a through train between Montreal and Sydney NS
>(the "Cabot") that went that way for a few years. In the 1970s, a connection
>was built from the Line "A" at Pelletier to a point on Line "B" near the
>Quebec - New Brunswick border, and this route became the principal CN freight
>route, which it remains today. Not long afterward, passenger service between
>Quebec and Edmunston on the old NTR line was discontinued and the line was
>eventually torn up. RDC service between Edmunston and Moncton remained until
>the massive VIA cutbacks of January, 1990. There is now no passenger service
>on what remains of Line "B".
Pelletier is on line "B", 67.6 miles west of Edmundston. Line "B"
(the ex-NTR) has been abandoned west of there. The new connecting track
joins line "A" at St-Andre Junction, 15.3 miles west of Riviere-du-
Loup.
>
Tom Box
CZ...@MUSICA.MCGILL.CA