May - 1950

Company Celebrates 100th Anniversary of Oldest Rail Section

 

The 100th anniversary of the oldest stretch of track on the Canadian Pacific Railway's 20,000 miles of line, was celebrated on May 1 this year.

Although the Canadian Pacific was only completed as a transcontinental line in 1885 and actual construction was started only four years previous when a number of smaller lines were incorporated into the transportation network during the period of linking the two coasts of Canada.

Among these was the St. Lawrence & Industry Village Railway (SL&IV), which ran from Lanoraie, on the St. Lawrence River, north to what is now known as Joliette. The original line, first opened to the public on 1 May 1850, is now an integral part of the C.P.R.'s St. Gabriel subdivision, which runs north from Lanoraie Junction to St. Gabriel in the Laurentian mountains.

The run from Lanoraie Junction, which is just over 50 miles east of Montreal on the line to Quebec City, to St. Gabriel is just over 27 miles and from the junction to Joliette, the part of the original SL&IV which is still in use, is about eight miles.

When opened, the railway was the first in Canada that was not a portage line, in other words it did not run from one body of water to another to speed traffic, but serviced a town, Industry Village, or Joliette as it is known today, inland from the St. Lawrence River.

The line was founded by Barthelemy Joliette after whom Industry Village is now named, in 1847, but construction took three years. Five miles of the line, from Lanoraie Village to Lanoraie Junction, was abandoned when the Quebec Montreal Ottawa & Occidental Railway (QMO&O) built through Lanoraie Junction in the late 1870's, but the original roadbed, even on the abandoned part can be seen leading from today's Canadian Pacific line south to the river.

The QMO&O acquired control of the 100-year-old line in 1880 and a year later purchased it outright. The QMO&O then became the North Shore Railway and in 1885 was transferred to the Canadian Pacific for operation.

The first locomotive in use on the line was the "Dorchester" built in 1835 by Robert Stephenson in England, and first used on the Champlain & St. Lawrence Railroad, the first railway in Canada. She was a far cry from today's streamlined Jubilee and Royal Hudson engines which pull into Lanoraie Junction for the transfer to the St. Gabriel line

The diminutive "Dorchester" was soon joined by the "Jason C. Pierce", a locomotive built in Philadelphia. A sketch of the SL&IV line at that time shows the formidable looking "Pierce" hauling a 12-foot-long four-wheeled baggage car and a 24-foot-long, four-wheeled passenger car.

Government reports for 1859-1860 give the average length for passenger trains on the line as two cars, while freight trains averaged all of six cars in length! Average speed in those days for SL&IV trains was a rocketing nine miles per hour.

This Spanner article is copyright 1950 by Canadian Pacific Kansas City and is reprinted here with their permission. All photographs, logos, and trademarks are the property of the Canadian Pacific Railway Company.