Canadian Railroads > MLW Monday, Fall foliage to the Laurentians

Canadian Thanksgiving (Oct 6-8, 1973) saw spectacular fall colours in the Laurentian Mountains north of Montreal combined with sunny weather.

The St.Lawrence Railway Society took advantage of the availability of CP's fleet of commuter coaches over the holiday weekend, added a baggage car, "Skyline" mid train dome and "Park" observation car, plus CP's two MLW FPA-2's and operated an excursion to Mont Laurier, the northern terminus of this line.

The excursion is shown northbound passing the station at Ste.Therese QC, at Summit and finally at Mont Laurier QC.

This portion of the CPR was built in 1903 as a "Colonisation Railway", where the railway partnered with a land developer (in this case the Catholic church) to create new settlements, and there were plans for extensions further north from Mont Laurier.

Some of Canada's first ski resorts were established along this line, and CP operated ski trains for decades on this railway.

Quebec's first multi-lane highway, the "Laurentian Autoroute" replaced the ski trains in the late 1950's.

The route was abandoned in 1990.

Beautiful scenes, train.

Thanks, bob Jordan

What a beautiful train. Sorry I missed the FA's by a couple of years; they were all out of service in St. Luc by 1975, when I first went up there. In the first shot, the order boards are set at "stop." Didn't that mean they had to stop and sign for orders? Or were they the only train on the line that day?

Fabulous shots of a somewhat obscure line.

Michael Berry

CPR_4000 Wrote:
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> What a beautiful train. Sorry I missed the FA's by
> a couple of years; they were all out of service in
> St. Luc by 1975, when I first went up there. In
> the first shot, the order boards are set at
> "stop." Didn't that mean they had to stop and sign
> for orders? Or were they the only train on the
> line that day?


Ste.Therese was the location of a large GM car plant (Pontiac Firebirds among others) and a variety of other CP lines. North of Ste.Therese the train would have been on its own, but other trains would be operating south of Ste.Therese.

Out west where I worked, the indication of two position train order boards could be modified by displaying a yellow flag by day/yellow lamp by night lower down on the train order signal mast which would allow picking up orders on the fly.

Since Ste.Therese was an important operating point, it could be that all trains stopped and signed the train register.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/15 08:54 by eminence_grise.

Beautiful images. Thank you for sharing them here.

Bob

ATSF100WEST......Out

Today this is the "P'tit train du Nord" bike trail:

http://gobiking.ca/p-tit-train/
http://www.laurentides.com/en/linearpark



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/15 10:00 by CPR_4000.

The portion of this route from Montreal, through Ste Therese to St Jerome is now a busy AMT commuter train line and probably sees more service now than it ever did:

https://www.amt.qc.ca/en/trip-planner/train/saint-jerome#Carte



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/02/15 14:32 by ghCBNS.

Here's what the line now looks like near Val David. I liked it better with trains.

Ray

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And here's a couple of shots near Labelle....

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Great photos of an excellent time in Canadian Railroading...lots of colour!

"Thanks for the memories" - B. Hope.

611

The fourth car appears to be one of the wonderful "2200's"

4489 Wrote:
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> The fourth car appears to be one of the wonderful
> "2200's"

The late Jack Beatty was the CP officer responsible for passenger train equipment assignments and also for selecting on board service crews out of Montreal. He was also a railfan. He selected some very nice equipment for these excursions. The 2200's rode well. He would assign veteran service crews who knew that there would be huge bar business in the Skyline and Park car and would keep on smiling. Jack wore his trademark bowler hat when he rode these trains and made sure everything was working to plan.

eminence_grise Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> 4489 Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > The fourth car appears to be one of the
> wonderful
> > "2200's"
>
> The late Jack Beatty was the CP officer
> responsible for passenger train equipment
> assignments and also for selecting on board
> service crews out of Montreal. He was also a
> railfan. He selected some very nice equipment for
> these excursions. The 2200's rode well. He would
> assign veteran service crews who knew that there
> would be huge bar business in the Skyline and Park
> car and would keep on smiling. Jack wore his
> trademark bowler hat when he rode these trains and
> made sure everything was working to plan.

Huge Bar business on an excursion out of Montreal??? Surely you jest! Tongue now out of cheek!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/04/15 19:51 by 4489.

WOW !

Simply amazing. eminence_grise, you made my day !

ST