I spent July 4 combining two interests: cross country cycling and railroads. I took the day to cycle from Sherbrooke, Quebec to Thetford mines, a distance of 67 miles on the now abandoned Quebec Central Railway. I’ve wanted to do this for a long time…although the line is abandoned, the track is still pretty much intact. 67 miles of banging across ties on a mountain bike left me a bit sore but otherwise none the worse for wear as I rolled into Thetford Mines at around 10:00 pm.
My first impressions…it doesn’t take long for one to appreciate what the word “abandoned” really means. I did not encounter a single human being along my trek… apart from the people I say travelling or walking on nearby roads. About 20 minutes into my trip I was in the wilderness, and living in this modern interconnected world of ours, one can easily forget what that means. Out in the boonies with the bugs, the plants, and the occasional large animal that is looking for its next meal.
I was surprised at how direct the old QC route was. Years ago I used to cycle to school in the same area and…the QC is shorter than road. A few times I found myself saying to myself…“wow…I’m here already?”. One also has to appreciate what a nice piece of engineering the QC was… the land is very hilly but somehow the builders (by using lots of curves and cut and fill) were able to keep the grade at less than 1% for the most part…a very nice line… and the people who built it might be sad to know that 130 years after its completion no one would be around to appreciate it.
The QC suffered the same fate as countless other regionals…its traffic base dried up or moved away. The QC relied primarly on asbestos and forest products… asbestos is pretty much gone and the wood and paper moves by truck now. Although the tracks and many of the bridges are still in place, I don’t expect that to be the case much longer. No one wants or needs the QC anymore, and I expect i
I never understood why the Cascade paper mill in East Angus won’t use rail , at least a portion of the QC would see wheels again.
Randy:
A decision such as you mention seems to have ‘personal’ written all over it. Someone really got on another’s last nerve, and they are not going to allow reason, and ration to change their minds(?) My thoughts. [:-^]
That’s a good point… I’ve wondered about that myself…The other mill in Bromptonville (downstream from the East Angus mill) is served by the G&W…I’ve put that question to several people in the area and get no response. Obviously they don’t think its feasible, but why that is I don’t know. East Angus and Sherbrooke are only some 35 miles apart…so we’re not talking about revitalizing a big part of the line anyway. And one would think that a large mill would welcome some form of rail access.
The other savior for the line might have been the booming Port of Quebec (City)… G&W’s current Quebec and Gatineau and CN’s line are certainly not the best routes for port traffic to the eastern US…a shorter more direct routing would have been QC’s line through the Townships to Sherbrooke where freight could be handed off to the MM&A or the G&W’s Saint Lawrence & Atlantic. No where in my reading on the subject have I ever come across the Port as a possible source for QC’s freight although a link with the port of Quebec was deemed very important when the line was first constructed.
Not so amazing really. I left at 6:00 am and got into Thetford Mines at around 10:00 pm… That’s certainly not breaking any speed records (my personal best is 165 miles in one day on the road), and I did have alot of time to stop and look around as wellas walk where bridges were missing and the way was not passable by bike. True, beating across all those ties was a bit uncomfortable at times, but the line hasn’t been maintained in years…so for long stretches the ties were flush with the ground, and the going was smooth. The bike I used for this is a Raleigh Matterhorn 21 speed… it still works well… have put over 9 thousand miles on it since I got it in May of last year… bought it at Canadian Tire for $450.00… great bike!!
Was down that way a few years back and consider the now-abandoned station at Thetford Mines to be one of the ugliest I have ever see on the System. However, the stations at Tring Jct. and Vallee Jct. were Lovely!! The open pit mines are enormous and one has a vewing platform. At Vallee Jct. was a small roundhouse, an air-operated turntable, and a selection of locomotives from GE, GMD, and Alco-GE, in low nose second gen, a radio-controlled repowered Alco switcher on Blunts and F units from Montreal commuter service. One of the last CNR steam locomotives to operate out of Montreal, CN 46, was at VJ, a bidirectional 4-6-4T used in commuter service. At a large mill, I now have forgotten where, was a ‘dinner train’ in storage ‘headed’ by an Alco GE Cab Car FA from LI? Nee SP&S?? Lovely country, to say the least. The Thetford Mines station was UGLY. Google Image same, and compare with Vallee Jct. and Tring Jct. Thank You.