Longueuil – Sheldon Junction railway line
The railway Longueuil-Sheldon Junction is a railway line in Quebec City ( Canada ) and Vermont ( United States ). It is 100 kilometers long and connects the cities of Longueuil , Chambly , Marieville , Farnham , Frelighsburg and Sheldon , among others . A large part of the line is closed, only from Cannon Junction to Marieville freight trains of the Canadian National Railway are still running . The Amtrak uses the section of Cannon Junction to Castle Gardens for their express Adirondack .
history
Montreal, Portland and Boston Railway
First, on April 5, 1869, the Missisquoi Junction Railway received a concession for a line from Farnham to the US border at Saint-Armand. On December 23, 1871, the Montreal, Chambly and Sorel Railway was also founded, which wanted to connect their namesake cities. The company began construction in Saint-Lambert on the Saint Lawrence River at the Cannon Junction junction. On September 26, 1873, the line from Cannon Junction to Chambly was put into operation. In 1875, the two railway companies merged to form the Montreal, Portland and Boston Railway (MP&B), as the intention was to build a new main line connecting Montreal and the US east coast. The Portland and Ogdensburg Railroad under construction was to be the southern part of the line. On September 22, 1877, the line from Chambly to Farnham was opened. However, regular traffic was not started until the spring of 1878. After the trains on the route to Montreal were constantly delayed because the route over the Pont Victoria was congested, an extension of the route to Longueuil was built , where it was possible to transfer to a ferry to Montreal. It was opened on September 10, 1879. In winter, when the ferry couldn't go, tracks were laid over the frozen St. Lawrence River every year, thus operating a separate route to Montreal. It was first opened on January 31, 1880. In the meantime, the line to Stanbridge East had been put into operation on October 1, 1879.
On September 9, 1882, the line with the section to Sheldon Junction on the Portland & Ogdensburg line, which has now also been opened, was completed. Continuous operation did not take place, however, as the traffic on the other continuous routes had also decreased significantly in the meantime and the route via Sheldon Junction was on the one hand very winding and mountainous, which extended the travel time, on the other hand there were no larger cities along the route. An official operation was not started south of Frelighsburg, instead this section from Frelighsburg to Sheldon Junction was shut down and dismantled on March 1, 1883. Parts of the route along Lake Carmi and at Sheldon Junction are still visible today . The seven-kilometer section from Longueuil to Cannon Junction was shut down again in 1887 after the Canadian Pacific Railway opened a second railway bridge to Montreal. Around this time, operations between Farnham and Frelighsburg were temporarily suspended.
Central Vermont Railway
The remainder of the route from Cannon Junction to Farnham continued. The MP&B nevertheless had to file for bankruptcy in 1896 and was sold on March 2, 1896 to the Montreal and Province Line Railway , which in turn was leased by the Central Vermont Railway (CV) and bought on September 29, 1898. The CV was in turn owned by the Grand Trunk Railway, which later became part of the Canadian National Railways . The CV now intended to rebuild the line to Sheldon Junction to establish a connection to their railway line St. Albans-Richford . In the first years of the 20th century the line to Frelighsburg was officially reopened. However, the gap to Sheldon Junction was not completed and the Farnham – Frelighsburg section remained a branch line as the Frelighsburg Branch .
Partial electrification
The Grand Trunk Railway bought the Montreal and Southern Counties Railway in the early 20th century , which wanted to build an electric interurban line from Montreal to Sherbrooke . The Grand Trunk therefore electrified the railway line from Cannon Junction to Marieville and built a link to Saint-Lambert. From 1913 electric overland trams drove over the railway line to Marieville. On January 11, 1926, the section from Marieville to Ste.-Angèle was electrified. However, since the Interurban main line had meanwhile been extended from Marieville to Granby via another CV route, only a shuttle car served this section three times a day. In 1925 the Canadian National took over the operation of the entire route and stopped the passenger traffic with steam trains between Cannon Junction and Farnham. The section from Ste.-Angèle to Farnham was shut down.
Further development
On the Farnham – Frelighsburg section, passenger traffic ended in 1932 and freight traffic around 1938, whereupon this line was closed. 1951 ended the electrical operation on the Marieville – Granby railway line and from this point on the Canadian National began using diesel trains for passenger services from Montreal to Granby, which operated between Cannon Junction and Marieville on the route described here. However, until 1956, Interurban trains ran to Sainte-Angèle. After the cessation of electrical operations, the line south of Marieville was closed. Passenger traffic to Marieville and on to Granby ended around 1962. Canadian National continues to operate goods traffic on the Cannon Junction – Marieville route. Since the opening of the connecting line to Brossard and the closure of the old main line between Saint-Lambert and Brossard, trains from Montreal to New York have also used the route between Cannon Junction and Castle Gardens. This also applies to the Amtrak , whose Adirondack express train travels this route once a day.
Route description
The route began on the banks of the Saint Lawrence River in Longueuil, at a ferry terminal to Montreal. It led from there southeast to Cannon Junction. This section is completely built over. Cannon Junction is now just a simple junction and at the same time the beginning of the main Montreal – New York line. This branches off about four kilometers further south, while the route towards Sheldon Junction continues south-east. In this densely populated area there were numerous stops, most of which had been set up at the time of Interurban operations. After 23 kilometers you reach Chambly, where the route passes the Chambly Basin and then crosses the Rivière Richelieu . Shortly afterwards, Marieville is reached, where the tracks end today.
The now disused line continues southeast through Ste.-Angèle, where a also disused branch line of the Québec, Montreal and Southern Railway was crossed. 16 kilometers further on is the Farnham junction, where railway lines from eight directions once met. The disused route continues in almost a southerly direction. The route can still be seen here in many places in the landscape, unlike between Marieville and Farnham, where agricultural use made the route almost completely disappeared with the exception of a few tracks. The route runs through St. Ignace, where Stone station was located, and through Riceburg, and after 29 kilometers from Farnham it reaches the former terminus at Frelighsburg. From 1882 to 1883 the route continued and ran in a southwestern direction across the state line to Vermont. Near the east bank of Lake Carmi, the route can still be seen very clearly despite the fact that it was closed a long time ago. It then continues south and shortly before Sheldon in an arc to the west, to merge north of the Sheldon Junction station into the Lunenburg-Maquam railway.
The only engineering structures along the way are the crossing of the Richelieu and some smaller rivers. The bridge over the Richelieu in Chambly is by far the largest structure that had to be built for the route.
Sources and further information
- Individual evidence
- ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB) 2010.
- ↑ Mike Walker: Comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. Quebec & Labrador + Newfoundland. SPV-Verlag, Dunkirk (GB) 2010.
- literature
- J. Derek Booth: Railways of Southern Quebec, Volume I. Railfare Enterprises, West Hill, ON 1982, ISBN 0-919130-37-2 .
- George W. Hilton, John F. Due: The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford University Press, Stanford, CA 1960. (Reprint: 2000, ISBN 0-8047-4014-3 )
- Robert C. Jones: Railroads of Vermont, Volume II. New England Press, Shelburne, VT 1993, ISBN 1-881535-02-9 .