2 July 2010

Train Buffs Mourn End of Line

People who had gathered to receive the last-ever train of the Dorion/Rigaud commuter
line walk past the closed Rigaud train station after the last train departed from Rigaud,
70 kilometres west of Montreal.

Regaud Quebec - When the train pulled up to the boarded-up Rigaud station on Wednesday, passengers in the first car broke into applause and one at a time shook the conductor's hand before descending to the platform.
 
The tracks end in Rigaud, but as of yesterday the Dorion/Rigaud commuter train will only run as far as Hudson.
 
For Marc Chouinard, the train was more than a ride to his network security job in Montreal. It also was a chance to foster his passion for the railway and his website, www.myRailfan.com>. He moved to Rigaud four years ago for a quiet life at the end of the line with his wife and three children.
 
"The main reason was to go to work without using a car," he said. "When you reach Rigaud and the doors open, you feel it's different, it's fresh."
 
He described the morning commute in Montreal as hectic, "I didn't have five minutes for me", and grew to cherish his daily three hours on the train.
 
"I sit in the first car, there's a table, and I open my laptop. I can take the time to read something, watch online TV, or work."
 
After more than a century, the service was cancelled when the town of 7,500 announced it couldn't afford to pay the annual fee to the Agence metropolitaine de transport that nearly doubled from $160,000 to $300,000. A twice-daily bus service on weekdays from Rigaud to Vaudreil station will replace the once-daily train into Montreal.
 
However, Chouinard said the buses don't cater to the 9-to-5 crowd, who would have to catch a train out of Montreal at exactly 5 p.m. to catch the Rigaud-bound bus from Vaudreil. He made laminated information cards to recruit other Rigaud residents to carpool with him to the station in Hudson on weekdays.
 
Rigaud station saw about 15 to 20 passengers on average during each rush hour in 2008, according to the most recent statistics available, but there were at least 75 on the train for the final ride. Many took pictures on the train and stayed at the station in Rigaud long after the train had left.
 
Four retired commuters boarded in Hudson. The women chatted excitedly, recalling the coal-burning stove that kept them warm as they waited for the train into Montreal from the historic Hudson Heights station.
 
Joan Mullan, who commuted into Montreal for 40 years, had never taken the train past Hudson before, but said the $7 fee to ride 15 kilometres was worth it.
 
"This is historical that it's stopping," she said. "I'm taking it for posterity."
 
Others took the journey to draw attention to the environmental effect of cutting public transportation to a growing commuter suburb.
 
Green Coalition member Avrom Shtern came from Montreal to mourn what he referred to as a lack of political will to promote public transportation.
 
He argued the reason so few people used Rigaud station was because the train ran once a day.
 
"The service stinks. If you make the service so bad, people won't take it," Shtern said.
 
Transit aficionado Andrew Dawson took the train with Shtern with hope that service will be renewed.
 
As he boarded the last No. 111 train to Rigaud, he joked the rainy weather was a sign of loss.
 
"It's not rain, it's tears," Dawson said. "This is something that should be growing, not killed off."
 
It's a sentiment echoed by others. The automatic ticket machine outside the station no longer sells tickets, but one passenger already longing for the train's return hoped the message displayed on its screen was prophetic:  "Temporarily out of service."
 
Chloe Fedio.

New double deck train car at AMT Dorion Rigaud line.