Waterloo – Sherbrooke railway line

Waterloo QC – Sherbrooke QC
Route length:	70 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Legend of Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu from Drummondville 0 Waterloo QC to Enlaugra Lac Brousseau 10 South Stukely QC old route until 1884 from Brookport 16 Libby QC (also Libby's) Eastray QC Rivière Missisquoi from Elkhurst 19th Dillonton QC Huntington Mine connection 21st Eastman QC (formerly Warne's Crossing) to Windsor Mills Eastman QC according to Mattawamkeag 23 Bolton Forest QC 26th Amber Brook QC 29 Orford Lake QC from Brookport Mont Orford QC 32 Castle Brook QC 37 Magog QC according to Mattawamkeag Rivière Magog Ruisseau Noir ? Katevale QC ? Val-du-Lac QC Industrial connection from Brookport 68 Sherbrooke QC Sherbrooke QC (CP train station 1888-1910) after Mattawamkeag (from 1910) from Montreal 70 Sherbrooke QC (Union Station) to Iceland Pond according to Levis

The railway Waterloo Sherbrooke is a railway line in Quebec ( Canada ). It is 70 kilometers long and connects the cities of Waterloo , Eastman , Orford Lake , Magog and Sherbrooke , among others . The route is mostly shut down since 1888, some sections were, however, in the construction of today by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway used railway Brook Port-Mattawamkeag on.

history

Huntington Mining Railway

The Stanstead, Shefford and Chambly Railway intended to build a railway line from Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu via Shefford and Magog to Stanstead. For financial reasons, however, she only got as far as Waterloo. The tracks on the line, opened in 1861, ended three kilometers east of Waterloo on the city limits. The railway was taken over shortly afterwards by the Vermont Central Railroad . On August 15, 1866, Huntington, an entrepreneur who ran a copper mine east of Waterloo, founded the Waterloo, Magog and Stanstead Railway to build the line between these cities. However, money for the railway construction could not be raised, so the concession expired. Huntington founded the Huntington Mining Railway on December 24, 1870 to at least connect his mine. However, he again received no money from the government. He then sold his mine to British entrepreneurs and on July 6, 1871 the railway company to Vermont Central, which completed the construction. On October 26, 1872, the line from Waterloo to the Huntington Mine near Dillonton was completed, but it was not officially opened to passenger traffic until April of the following year. The railway company, which has since been reorganized in Central Vermont Railroad (CV), operated the Huntington Mining Railway and provided all vehicles. There was no continuous passenger traffic to St. Jean, however, and had to change trains in Waterloo.

Extension to Magog

The entrepreneur Ralph Merry founded the Waterloo and Magog Railway on December 23, 1871 . She should build the continuation of the line to Sherbrooke. Merry applied for government subsidies of C $ 2,500 per mile, which were approved, but only on condition that he had completed ten miles (about 16 kilometers) by November 1, 1874 and prepared it for track laying. With no means to carry out this work, his company was on the verge of failure. However, since the CV was interested in the further construction of the line, they sold the Huntington Mining Railway on October 20, 1874 to Waterloo & Magog, which thus met the conditions for the state subsidies and received money for the further construction. The line from Waterloo to Dillonton also had to be upgraded for higher train loads and speeds. In late 1876 the subsidy was increased to $ 4,000 per mile completed, but for a maximum of 43 miles, which covered the entire distance from Waterloo to Sherbrooke. On December 11, 1877, the line to Magog was put into operation, but the official opening did not take place until December 29. Again, the CV ran the operation on the route, as the subsidy money for the route construction had been used up and own vehicles could not be procured. A mixed pair of trains per day now drove from Waterloo to Magog and back and took 115 minutes for one direction and 140 minutes for the other. In the summer of 1878, a pure passenger train was also used, which covered the route faster.

Extension to Sherbrooke

In addition to the extension to Sherbrooke, the railway company worked from February 1883 on a shorter route between South Stukely and Warne's Crossing (Eastman), where a new station and a track triangle was created. On March 14, 1884, the shorter route went into operation and the winding and incline-rich route over Libby was closed. The section from Dillonton to Eastman remained as a link to the Huntington Mine, but was out of service because the mine had initially stopped production in 1883. Even after the mine reopened in 1890, the railway line was initially not used. The extension to Sherbrooke was opened on August 1, 1884, initially only in freight traffic. It was not until June 29, 1885 that regular passenger services began and continuous trains were offered from Montreal to Sherbrooke. On February 19, 1886, a connecting track to the Quebec Central Railway and thus to the station of the Grand Trunk Railway was opened in Sherbrooke and the trains now drove there.

Shutdown

In the meantime, the Atlantic and North-West Railway had been founded as a subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway , which wanted to build a route from Montreal to the Maine border and on to the Atlantic coast. The Canadian Pacific agreed in November 1886 a right of use for the route from Waterloo to Sherbrooke, but wanted to rebuild the route on a shorter route and only continue to use individual sections of the route. However, the CV continued to operate the train service on the line, as the CP connecting line was not yet completed. On June 1, 1888, CP finally bought Waterloo & Magog and CV's operations were discontinued. On the same day, the Brookport to Magog site was completed. Between South Stukely and Eastray and east of Eastman and from a point east of Castle Brook to Magog, the CP trains continued to use the old route. Since the CP route to Sherbrooke was not yet ready, the trains between Magog and Sherbrooke initially ran on the old route.

The Eastray section to the old Eastman Station and the section to the Huntington Mine in Dillonton were sold to the Orford Mountain Railway . The line to Dillonton was closed on April 1, 1936, the line from Eastray to Eastman on April 30, 1965. Already on June 6, 1888, the old section from Eastman to Bolton Forest had to be put back into operation after a storm hit the viaduct destroyed the camp site track at Eastman. A new bridge could only be opened in December. It collapsed again under a train on November 1, 1907 and the CP relocated provisional tracks between Eastman and Bolton Forest on the old route, which was used as a diversion route as in 1888.

On November 9, 1888, the new CP line between Magog and Sherbrooke went into operation and the old railway line via Katevale was shut down. On November 18, 1907, shortly before Magog, the CP replaced the old route through the swamps of northern Lake Memphremagog with a new, straighter route. In the 1950s, a nearly two-kilometer section of the old railway line was reopened as an industrial connection in the urban area of ​​Sherbrooke. On September 13, 2006, the old connection line in Sherbrooke to the Québec Central Railway was finally shut down, with the result that the Waterloo – Sherbrooke line is completely out of service except for the sections that were merged into the CP main line. The CP line has been operated by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway in freight traffic since 2008 . VIA Rail took over passenger transport from CP in 1978 , but stopped it at the end of 1994.

Route description

From Waterloo to Eastman

The line begins in Waterloo, where it is the eastern continuation of the Saint-Jean railway line . The route leads eastwards and crosses today's Route 112 to the east of the city. Parallel to and about 200 to 500 meters north of Route 112, it continues to Lac Brousseau. The railway crossed the shallow lake on a wooden yoke bridge and turned on the lake in a south-easterly direction. Right next to Route 112, the train continues to South Stukely, where the first train station was. With the opening of its line in 1888, CP had built a new station on its own line, which was a little further south. The campsite line joins shortly after the train station.

The Waterloo & Magog route continued south from here until 1884 and met the northern tip of Lac Libby . To the east of the lake, the route turned towards the east near the southeastern tip of the lake. The railway ran through unpopulated woodland with many bends. A forest path is now on the former railway line. Shortly before Dillonton, the route crossed the Missisquoi River. In Dillonton from 1877 a line branched off to Potton Springs . This was also the entrance to the Huntington's Copper Mine. Route 245 is on the railway line until shortly before Eastman.

The new line through the Phifield Passage, which was opened in 1884 and is still used today to Eastray, is significantly shorter and less steep. Eastray station was located at the settlement of the same name, directly on Route 112. Here, a part of the Waterloo & Magog line, which was still used until 1965, branched off from the CP line, which slowly descends from here into the Missisquoi valley and the river in the local area of ​​Eastman crossed. Rue Missisquoi was built after the line was closed. The new line merged into the old line in a triangle of tracks. The Eastman station building, which was initially located next to the old line, was moved into the Gleisdreieck, where it still stands today. The railway line continues in a north-easterly direction under the campsite line. Behind the bridge, the line to Windsor branched off until 1965 . The Waterloo & Magog route curved north around the settlement on Rue de Normandie, and met the campsite route east of the Chemin George Bonnallie level crossing, which it crossed here. In 1888 a connecting switch had to be installed here as the old route served as a diversion. In 1907 this diversion was used again.

From Eastman to Sherbrooke

The route now runs in a straight line in a south-easterly direction to the Chemin du Versant. This section of the route still exists today. It turned east, where the Chemin du Contour runs today and shortly afterwards reaches a swamp area belonging to Lac Orford . The train crossed this swamp on a yoke bridge. The embankment is still visible next to Route 112, south of Rue de la Butte. From here route 112 runs south around the lake on the railway line, before the railway line meets the new CP line that was opened in 1888. At Southière-sur-le-Lac , the old route leaves the route of the CP route again and continues south. In this area the route is partially built over. Shortly thereafter, however, it crosses the campsite and again leads through a marshland on the northern tip of Lac Memphremagog . The route through this swamp was only closed in 1907. On the western outskirts of Magog, the route meets the CP route again.

To the east of Magog, around the level of the Chemin de la Rivière level crossing, the old route branches off from the CP route again and leads in a straight line, initially over the Rivière Magog and further south-east. Shortly before the shore of Lac Magog , it turns south and leads through another swamp area south around the lake, while the campsite route remains on the north bank of Rivière Magog and Lac Magog. Here, too, the embankment is still present in the swamp. The route runs parallel to the east bank of the lake and is used today by Route 216 until shortly before Sherbrooke. In Sherbrooke the route is largely built over up to the industrial connection, which is still used today. The siding on Rue Roy is on the old railway line that rejoins the CP line at the Sherbrooke freight yard. The connecting track to the Quebec-Central line, opened in 1886 and closed in 2006, is still there.

literature

• Derek Booth: Railways of Southern Quebec. Volume II: From the Richelieu to the Chaudière. (2nd edition) Railfare / DC Books, Pickering / Montreal, 2008, ISBN 978-1-897190-31-9 .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Booth 2008, pages 7-29.