Deux-Montagnes line

Deux-Montagnes Line
Inbound train at Canora Station
Overview
Type	Commuter rail
System	Agence métropolitaine de transport
Locale	Montreal, Laval, Laurentides
Termini	Central Station Deux-Montagnes Station
Stations	12
Daily ridership	31,200 (2013)[1]
Ridership	7,744,800 (2013)[1]
Operation
Opening	1918
Operator(s)	CN's Montrain division
Technical
Line length	29.9 km (18.6 mi)[2]
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Electrification	25 kV AC 60 Hz
Route map

Deux-Montagnes Line
Legend
Deux-Montagnes Grand-Moulin originally Deux-Montagnes Rivière des Mille-Îles Zone 5 Zone 3 Laval-sur-le-Lac Laval-Links Des Prairies Siding Sainte-Dorothée Rivière des Prairies Île-Bigras Rivière des Prairies Zone 3 Zone 2 Ste-Genevieve Roxboro-Pierrefonds originally Roxboro Sunnybrooke former Cartierville branch Cartierville Bois-Franc originally Lazard then Val-Royal Monkland Du Ruisseau Zone 2 Zone 1 Montpellier originally Vertu      Mascouche Autoroute 40 Mont-Royal Canora originally Portal Heights      Saint-Jérôme Mount Royal Tunnel Central Station Bonaventure      Mont-Saint-Hilaire

The Deux-Montagnes line is a commuter railway line in Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is owned by the Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT), the umbrella organization that plans, integrates, and coordinates public transport services across this region.

The line was created in 1918 as a Canadian Northern Railway (CNoR) service. Canadian National Railway (CN) ran the line starting in 1923 following the merger of CNoR into CN. CN transferred the Deux-Montagnes Line to the Société de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (STCUM) on July 1, 1982. The line was refurbished from 1992 to 1995. It was transferred to the AMT on January 1, 1996.

There are 25 inbound and 24 outbound departures each weekday.^[2]

Overview

This line links Central Station in downtown Montreal with Deux-Montagnes to the northwest of the Island of Montreal.

The line offers frequent service during rush hours (10–30 minute intervals) and hourly service outside rush hours on weekdays. There is less frequent service on Saturdays and Sundays.^[3]

The trains are owned and managed by the Agence métropolitaine de transport and are operated by Canadian National's Montrain division.

Deux-Montagnes, Roxboro-Pierrefonds, and Central Station are wheelchair-accessible.^[4]

Today, more than 31,000 people ride this train daily, having almost as many passengers as Montreal’s four other commuter railway lines combined.

History

Electric Boxcab locomotive used on the Deux-Montagnes from 1918 to 1995.

The Deux-Montagnes line was built by the Canadian Northern Railway. While other railways including Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk Railway already had prime downtown locations for their terminal stations, Canadian Northern did not, having only a station out of the way on Moreau Street in Hochelaga.

In 1910, it was decided that the best way for Canadian Northern to get downtown was to drill their way downtown — through Mont Royal. The construction started at both ends and met half way through with only an inch difference. In 1918 the electrified (2400 V DC catenary), double-track 3.2 mi (5.15 km) tunnel was dubbed Montreal’s first subway. Because the tunnel is on a steep grade and inadequately ventilated^[5][6] it was decided from the very beginning that the locomotives would be electric. The ventilation shaft is located SW of the intersection of Édouard-Montpetit Boulevard and Vincent-d'Indy Avenue very close to the Édouard-Montpetit Metro Station.^[7][8]

The structure gauge of the Mount Royal Tunnel limits the height of bilevel cars to 14 ft 6 in or 4.42 m.^[9]

In order to finance the project, Canadian Northern built a ‘model city’ north of the tunnel, modeled after Washington, D.C. The Town of Mount-Royal has grown to be an upper-income neighborhood today. Construction began in 1912 and finished in 1918. The first train was pulled by electric locomotive #601 (retired as #6711), which left Tunnel Terminal at 8:30 a.m. on October 21, 1918. The Canadian Northern Railway went bankrupt and was absorbed into what is now Canadian National. Tunnel Terminal was replaced by Central Station in 1943.

Map of 1927 of the Île de Montréal with the position of the tunnel under Mount Royal shown by dashes on the yellow line. The red line shows a proposed, but never completed, access to Central Station. This is the Doney spur[10]

In the 1960s, the first plans were announced to renovate the line, whose equipment was 40 years old at the time. First, it was to become metro line 3, but plans were shelved because of the importance to build line 4 for service to Expo 67. With the equipment ageing, and ridership declining, CN wanted to close the line in the 1970s, but their proposals were rejected. The Quebec Ministry of Transport considered using the line for a high-speed connection to Mirabel Airport (Transport rapide régional aéroportuaire Montréal Mirabel, 1974) or as the first line of a BART-style regional metro system (Réseau express de Montréal, 1977; Métro régional, 1979). None of these projects progressed beyond the planning stage.

In 1982, the fares for the trains were integrated with the fares for the Metro and buses. The fare was two bus tickets. This was later reduced to one from Central Station to Val-Royal (now Bois-Franc).

In 1992, the government of Quebec announced a modernisation plan for the line which would include 58 state-of-the-art 25 kV AC MR-90 electric multiple-unit trains built by Bombardier Transportation, new tracks, and centralised traffic control. Service was shut down completely in the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995 to allow for major work to be done. The last of the old rolling stock left Central Station at 6:30 p.m. on June 2, 1995 – 76 years, 8 months, 11 days, and ten hours after it first went into service. The same locomotive, #6711 (with #6710 (pictured)), hauled the last train through the tunnel.

Future projects

To ease overcrowding and attract new users on the Deux-Montagnes Line, the AMT plans to carry out several projects:

• Extend the double track from its current endpoint at the Bois-Franc station to the Roxboro-Pierrefonds station in Pierrefonds-Roxboro. Work includes doubling the track over 7.5 km parallel to the existing track, rebuilding a small bridge, building a new overpass over the bike path through Bois-de-Liesse park, reconfiguring three level crossings, and adding a second platform at Sunnybrooke station. Construction should begin in 2013 and be complete by 2015. Preliminary costs are estimated at $51 million.^[11][12]
  • Currently, there is a second track from Bois-Franc to slightly past Saraguay (about half way between Bois-Franc and Sunnybrooke at the A13), but it is not electrified and is used by CN freight trains serving industries along Doney spur.^[10]

• Open a new train station at Autoroute 13 near boulevard Gouin (between Bois-Franc and Sunnybrooke stations). The project is subject to an increase on the line's capacity, pushing its commissioning date to 2015 or later.

Current status

• Since 2010, the CN has been building a railway overpass for commuter trains to pass below freight trains that currently use CN's Saint-Laurent subdivision just south of the Montpellier station. The overpass is a prerequisite to increase commuter train frequencies on the Deux-Montagnes line as well as the commissioning of the Mascouche Line. The $60 million project was completed by the end of 2013, when the new line was to have been commissioned as well.^[13]

• On February 28, 2014, the AMT announced that it had purchased the Deux-Montagnes line from CN for a sum of $92 million. The agreement gives CN trackage rights for freight trains outside two rush-hour exclusive time windows (08:30—15:30 — 20:30–05:30).^[14] This gives the AMT complete flexibility for scheduling trains and allow them to save rent money in the long term.

List of stations

The following stations are on the Deux-Montagnes line:

As of January 9, 2012 many bus line number have changed.^[21]

The Deux-Montagnes line uses the former CN Deux-Montagnes Subdivision between mile 0.8 (Central Station) and 19.4 (Deux-Montagnes). The AMT now owns it.^[14]

See also

• Canadian Northern Railway
• List of Montreal bus routes
• Line 3 Red (Montreal Metro)

References

External links

• Official AMT website
• Marc Dufour's website about the Deux Montagnes Line (in French)