Canadian Railroads > The Chaleur

From  February 19, 2011, here is one scene from an epic chase from Matapédia to Gaspé and back.  I had noted this location as Douglastown, but I think it's actually closer to Bois-Brûlé, although the blizzard made it kind of hard to identify many locations 15 years later.  Even with all the slow orders on bridges back then, the Chaleur was a fairly challenging chase at the best of times, and the blizzard conditions made it that much trickier.  I think we skipped all the telephoto locations and concentrated on the wide angle or 50mm wedgie shots like this one instead.

The line has been rebuilt as far as Port-Daniel recently, but apparently VIA has no plans to come back until they can go all the way to Gaspé.

GTD

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Very nice! Great results for braving the elements that cold day.❄️

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Nice!
​It appears on Google that they built an entirely new bridge at Port-Daniel. My experience with the Baie Du Chaluer line was in 1986 when I was in New Richmond for a Canadian Car Club stage rallye "Baie Du Chaluer". It was a memorable weekend. We won our class! But seeing the CN BLW "Alco" hood units pulling the 'Chaluer" at speed through the farmlands was wonderful. I know the huge papermill at New Richmond is gone. What is the traffic base today? Especially at Port-Daniel and beyond?
This is one part of the world I'd like to get back to, so many great things that i experienced there!
Gonut

The "Gaspe " train was my baby with many memories of trips on her...:):):)
As far as I know the paper/lumber mill in Chandler has been gone for years to.:(:(:(

That's a snow plowing shot!  Feel good about this one.

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> What is the traffic base today?

https://railroadfan.com/wiki/index.php/Gasp%C3%A9sie_Railway_Society

According to the above website, at Nouvelle there's a Groupe Lebel sawmill, at Chaleurs there's a transload and the LM Windpower windmill plant, and Port Daniel has the McInnis Cement plant. A couple of RS18u's are still running, but the railroad is leasing four GP38-2's from NRE.

Man! I sure miss that train! I live in Southern California and that beautiful pocket streamliner was well worth flying into Montreal for a weekend round trip.
Several times, I would fly up, arriving on Friday, and depart on The Chaleur that evening for Gaspe in a roomette. I did it often enough that the crew would allow me to stay on board Saturday during the layover and ride the turn on the Y! Then we would leave Gaspe for the return trip back to Montreal, with me usually in the same roomette. We would arrive back in Montreal Sunday morning, usually in plenty of time for me to take another train out to the airport and make it back to SoCal later Sunday evening.
Two full nights in a real Roomette, "Park Car" Round End dome/sleeper, Skyline dome, sleepers with Sections, and a full diner! It was always a wonderful trip, well worth the effort, riding aboard a Budd built time machine!!

Nice pic!!