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Histoire Québec

The impact of railways on Stanstead: 1850 to 1950 J. Derek Booth

Volume 14, Number 3, 2009

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The impact of railways on Stanstead: 1850 to 1950 by J. Derek Booth

D' J. Derek Booth was educated at McGill and is Professor Emeritus of Geography at Bishop's University. He is the author of several books on the role of railways in Quebec. This article is based on a lecture by Derek Booth on the occasion of the opening of the Stanstead Historical Society's Summer 2005 exhibition, "Arrival and Departure: The Regional Train." Le Dr J. Derek Booth a fait ses études à l'Université M'Gill; il est actuellement professeur émérite de géographie à l'Université Bishop's. Il a beaucoup écrit sur l'histoire des chemins defer du Québec. Le présent article est basé sur une conférence que Derek Booth a prononcée lors de l'ouverture de l'exposition « Arrival and Departure: the Regional Train », à la Société historique de Stanstead à l'été 2005.

For almost a century, from 1850 the Maritimes, the distribution of in Canada (which included the to 1950, the railway dominated population was largely confined opening of the first Lachine all other forms of transportation to the coastal regions; in Quebec, Canal in 1825) sought to enhance in Canada. All of the economic, it was in valleys of the St. Law­ and to extend the reach of social and geographic patterns rence, Chaudière and Richelieu Canada's waterways. Overland that were created throughout the Rivers; and, in Ontario, farms travel in inland regions remained country during this period were and villages stretched along the difficult. Some new form of trans­ influenced by the railway as an shores of the St. Lawrence River portation was required to pro­ enabling factor. and of the lower Great Lakes. In vide access to the vast regions of every region, there was little North America that lay at some In the period before the coming settlement or economic activity distance from navigable water­ of the railways, the patterns of beyond a narrow fringe lying ways. settlement and economic growth inland from navigable water­ in Canada were tied exclusively ways. Between 1825 and 1850, a The solution to this transport to waterways and to canals. In flurry of canal building activity conundrum was the railway. The development of the steam engine and its application to pulling wagons along fixed lines of rails rninahDmida held out the promise of a new transport technology that suffe­ red from none of the limitations of water transport. In the first instance, it was relatively inde­ pendent of topography; it could go where no navigable rivers flowed and thereby make accessi­ ble vast tracts of land not hither­ to economically accessible. It moved faster than any ships ply­ ing seas, rivers or canals. It could carry prodigious tonnages of freight, unlike its overland predecessors, the stagecoach and buckboard wagon. And it could do all of these things year round Grand* a»rs dr l'immigration dana lea Cantona de I'Eat Principal Accra» Routes of Eastern Townships Settlers while Canadian water craft lan­ guished through the long frozen Grands axes de l'immigration dans les Cantons de l'Est - Principal Access Routes of Eastern Townships Settlers. (Source : BOOTH, }. Derek, Musee McCord, Université M'Gill, Montreal, winter months. 1984, p.23) In the years after 1825, an epi­ the regional economy was lar­ construction of a railway to an demic of 'Railway Fever' swept gely isolated from the main­ ice-free port on the American over Western Europe and North stream of North American eco­ east coast in order to be able to America. It started in England, nomic life. Great internal pres­ maintain year-round export (and spread to the United States and sure for the construction of rail­ import) of goods and raw mate­ then moved northward to ways which would link the rials. New York, Boston and Canada. By the 1840s it was region to the outside world came Portland, Maine were the three endemic in the Eastern Town­ from within the Eastern Town­ primary contenders and, through ships. The railway was hailed as ships, from people like Moses a variety of more or less colour­ the new and universal cure for Colby, CC. Colby, A.B. Foster, ful exercises involving sleighs economic depression, isolation L.S. Huntington, A.T. Galt and racing through the winter forests and as the means to achieve a Ralph Merry. Each had his own with sacks of mail, Portland was wide variety of economic and particular vision. eventually chosen as the termi­ social objectives. Among the peo­ nus for Montreal's railway. ple most susceptible to this epi­ With an increasing amount of demic were politicians, business­ trade in forest and agricultural At the same time that a desire men, landowners, speculators products moving out of Canada was expressed in Montreal cir­ and mayors. Farmers were often to the United States and to Great cles to build a railway that would less sympathetic to its effects. Britain, the port of Montreal, inevitably have to pass through Locally, Moses Colby and Ralph lying at the junction of the the Eastern Townships, there Merry, among many others, were Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers was also much interest from affected. and their respective western hin­ within the region to have such a terlands in Ontario, emerged as railway built. All that remained For the next fifty years, loud the transport hub of eastern was to choose the precise route voices were raised within the Canada. One of the major limita­ and to find the money for the Eastern Townships in favour of tions of the rivers and of the project. The history of chartering, building railways and, by 1920, canal systems, however, was planning and building of rail­ scarcely a hamlet in the region their seasonality. For the winter ways in Stanstead County, in was without its railway station. months, they were inoperative Stanstead Township and in the In the Eastern Townships, as and the volume of goods now Town of Stanstead, in the period elsewhere in Canada, railways moving for export demanded a between 1850 and 1890, reflects and politics became inextricably year-round means of transport. many aspects of the complicated intertwined. processes by means of which A railway was the obvious solu­ railways were conceived, The Eastern Townships - tion and in the 1840s a strong planned, promoted and some­ Regional Anomaly movement grew in Montreal times built. mercantile circles to promote the The Eastern Townships was arguably the largest area of agri­ cultural settlement in Canada that lay at any distance from a navigable waterway. By 1850 the region had a population of over 80 000, with strong southward ties to the United States (and hence with an increased suscep­ tibility to Railway Fever). But because of the absence of any commercially navigable water­ ways and of the complete inade­ quacy of the road network for moving large quantities of agri­ cultural or resource commodities, iiisTiiiRi: in I:BI:I NDIE18 3 2MS

Stanstead County's First valleys. Consequently, when the The problem was to find the Railway line was completed in 1853, money for railway construction while Stanstead County had its from within the communities In 1845, the St. Lawrence and first line of railway passing through which the line was to Atlantic Rail Road - later through the Townships of Barn- pass. Not everyone was as Railroad - was chartered, along ston and Barford, the Township enthusiastic for railways as were with its American counterpart, and the Town of Stanstead were the Eastern Townships entrepre­ the Atlantic and St. Lawrence left to one side. The aspirations neurs and politicians. Farmers Railroad, to build a line of rail­ of its citizens to get a railway of living close to Montreal on the way joining Montreal and their own were left unfulfilled lowlands saw no great advan­ Portland, Maine. If Montreal and for the time being. tage in a railway since they had Portland were the two fixed ends access to the urban market and of the line, an equally fixed point The Stanstead, Shefford & they already had a railway in the on its route was the town of Chambly Railroad form of the Champlain and St. Sherbrooke. It was the head­ Lawrence Railroad which ran quarters of the British American When the St. Lawrence and between St. Johns (St-Jean) and Land Company and home to Atlantic was completed from Laprairie. Alexander Galt, one of the prin­ Montreal to Portland, in 1853, its cipal backers of the railway. route largely bypassed the most The first indication of financial densely settled parts of the difficulties on the part of the There were loud voices in Eastern Townships in the coun­ SS&C was the change of its wes­ Stanstead, among them that of ties of Missisquoi, Shefford, tern terminus from Chambly Moses Colby, who wanted the Brome and Stanstead. The choice (effectively Montreal) to St. Johns railway to pass through the of this route by the SL&A under­ on the Richelieu River. With this Town of Stanstead. To this end, scores the reality that this was a move the SS&C abandoned any surveyors were hired to find a railway built primarily to stimu­ pretense of becoming an interna­ practicable route that passed late the export trade in Canadian tional line in its own right. The through the town, and then raw materials and agricultural line between St. Johns and Colby and his associates set commodities. It was not built, in Montreal was controlled by the about to convince the railway the first instance, for the express Grand Trunk Railway. company to adopt it. Unfor­ benefit of the Eastern Townships tunately, the most practical route (with the notable exception of Furthermore, the Grand Trunk from an engineering point of Sherbrooke and the British Ame­ Railway (which took over the view for a railway leading rican Land Company). Montreal-Portland line in 1854) south from Sherbrooke lay up was not anxious to have a com­ the valley of the Coaticook Stanstead County did have its peting line of international rail­ River, through the town of railway but, from the viewpoint way within the Eastern Town­ Coaticook, and not over the of the residents of the Town of ships. But the GTR held two uplands of Hatley and Stanstead Stanstead and of Stanstead trumps. In addition to contro­ Townships. Furthermore, on the Township, it was in the wrong lling the Champlain and St. American side of the border, the place. Undaunted, Moses Colby Lawrence Railroad and through mountainous topography of much and his associates (including it, access to Montreal, the GTR of the route of that railway Wilder Pierce) promptly obtai­ also would have, after 1859, reduced the choices of the rail­ ned, in 1853, a charter for a new when the Victoria Bridge was way engineers, and the most line of railway, the Stanstead, completed, the only railway practical route from Portland Shefford and Chambly Railroad. bridge over the St. Lawrence was the one that brought the line As the name implies, it was inten­ River. The Victoria Bridge to Island Pond, Vermont. ded to be built from the St. Law­ remained the only rail bridge rence River in Chambly, through until 1887, when the Canadian Despite Colby's best efforts, the the County of Shefford to the Pacific Railway's bridge was topographical realities dictated American border in Stanstead completed at Lasalle. Three years that the railway follow the Coa­ County, where a link with an later the Canada Atlantic Rail­ ticook River and not the Massa­ American railway would be way crossed the St. Lawrence at wippi and Tomifobia River made. Coteau. Not even the farmers of Shefford and Stanstead County proved ready to subscribe the large sums required for the construction of a railway. The SS&C was complet­ ed from St. Johns to Farnham, Granby and Waterloo by 1861. In 1862, when construction had rea­ ched Frost Village, the funding ran out. The railway had been operated from the beginning by the Vermont Central Railroad and that company, like the Grand Trunk, did not want another competing international railway in its immediate hinterland. Con­ new railway join the Grand held the very real prospect of sequently, the VCR was in no Trunk at Lennoxville was that benefiting directly from the hurry to see the line completed to the GTR would be in a position arrival of a railway, in terms of Stanstead. This meant that for a to control any and all traffic on the manufacturing industries second time, the plan to bring a the MVR, much in the way they that it might stimulate. railway to Stanstead Township were able to do so at St. Johns and to the Town of Stanstead had with the SS&C. In the bargain, Merry's first attempt, in conjunc­ been thwarted. the GTR would also effectively tion with Lucius Seth Hun­ control another international tington, to secure a railway for The Massawippi Valley railway. his town, was to charter the Railway Waterloo, Magog & Stanstead None of these considerations Railway in 1866. The basic pur­ Attention now shifted to a new dampened the enthusiasm in pose of this line was to complete railway proposal. Through the Stanstead for the new railway. the original objectives of the 1850s, C.C. Colby (Conservative Construction proceeded through SS&C and extend that compa­ MP for Stanstead, 1869-1891) had the late 1860s and on July 1,1870, ny's line beyond Frost Village, at campaigned vigorously for a rail­ the Massawippi Valley Railway least as far as Magog and, prefe­ way through Stanstead Town­ was officially opened. Stanstead rably, all the way to Stanstead. ship and in 1862 he was instru­ Township finally had its railway. When the WM&S was chartered mental in the chartering of the Even though the main line of the in 1866, however, the attention Massawippi Valley Railway. In MVR passed through Beebe, a and the energies of most railway 1863, the Connecticut and three-mile spur line to Stanstead promoters in Stanstead Town­ Passumpsic Rivers Railroad had and Rock Island was built at the ship were focused on the Massa­ reached Newport, Vermont and same time. The Colbys' dream of wippi Valley Railway, and they it was looking for a northern con­ bringing a railway to the Town of had little time or financial sup­ nection to Canada. As the pros­ Stanstead was now within one port to give Merry in his under­ pect of the SS&C ever reaching mile of finally being fulfilled. taking. Furthermore, the Ver­ Stanstead faded, Newport inte­ mont Central remained reluctant rests embraced the MVR as their to see this line extended. Con­ best hope of securing a Canadian The Waterloo, Magog & Stanstead Railway sequently, the charter was link. The MVR would run down allowed to lapse and the WM&S the valley of the Tomifobia River remained one of the many to Lake Massawippi, along the But not everyone in Stanstead County was happy. Ralph Merry Canadian paper railways which eastern shore of the lake, and existed in charter form but which then down the valley of the and his associates in Magog were still without a railway. And never became operating rail­ Massawippi River to Lennoxville ways. and a junction with the Grand because of its water power poten­ Trunk. The effect of having this tial on the Magog River, Magog li \nii:itu

The Waterloo & Magog Railway as the prospect of the Canadian were retained. The CPR built an Pacific Railway extending its net­ entirely new line of railway bet­ Undaunted, in 1871 Merry, along work through the Eastern ween Brookport and Lennox­ with A.H. Moore and others, Townships increased, the atti­ ville, to be part of its new "Short applied for another railway char­ tude of the Vermont Central Line" through the state of Maine ter, this one for the Waterloo & towards its ramshackle sub­ to St. John, New Brunswick, Magog Railway. As its corporate sidiary, the W&M, changed dra­ which was opened in 1889. name implies, this railway had a matically. The VCR undertook to more limited objective of simply continue the line of the W&M Consequently, in 1889, the town getting Magog a link to the rail­ beyond Magog and all the way of Magog found itself not at the head of the SS&C at Frost to Sherbrooke in order to create end of a bucolic branch line oper­ Village. The VCR placed no an asset that the CPR would ated by an indifferent parent objections in the way of this lim­ have to acquire as part of its new company, but on the main inter­ ited venture; sufficient funds line through the Eastern Town­ national line of the CPR connec­ were raised locally and by sub­ ships. The W&M reached Sher­ ting central Canada to Maritime scription in England and, by brooke in 1884 and, just as ports. 1878, the town of Magog finally planned, the CPR bought the had its railway. The railway map entire line from Waterloo to Stanstead at Last of Stanstead County was nearing Sherbrooke just three years later. completion. Most of the line of the W&M, The last piece of railway cons­ having been built hastily and to truction in Stanstead County The Canadian Pacific Railway minimal construction standards, (with the exception of an indus­ was abandoned outright. Only trial spur to Graniteville) took The next chapter involved the small parts and certain major place in 1896, more than fifty calculated extension of the W&M structures, like the trestle in years after attempts were initiat­ by the Vermont Central to Sher­ Sherbrooke connecting the W&M ed to get a railway to the Town of brooke. Through the early 1880s, to the Quebec Central Railway, Stanstead. While the Massa­ wippi Valley Railway's spur line from Beebe Junction (then called Stanstead Junction) did indeed bring the rails to Rock Island in 1870, they stopped a mile short of the town of Stanstead itself. This deficiency was rectified when the Boston & Maine Rail­ road (which operated the MVR) built a mile-long line up the steep slope from the rail yards in Rock Island to a new station located directly in the Town of Stanstead. The dream of the Colbys was finally realized.

The Post-Railway Landscape

It is difficult to overstate the nature of the transport revolu­ tion that railways represented. Virtually overnight, they made possible a range of economic and Wreck on the Boston & Maine Railroad near Stanstead Junction (Beebe Junction), social activities that had been October 4,1900. (Source : Derek Booth collection). unthinkable before their arrival. of Canada and the United States; Many of the new factory indus­ Nevertheless, railways are best they broke the isolation imposed tries were 'exotic' in the sense thought of as enabling factors (or by a generally poor road system; that they both imported their catalysts) rather than as the they 'opened up' areas to outside raw materials and exported their direct cause of economic or social influences. They also increased finished products (rubber, tobac­ changes. It took more than the competition in all social and eco­ co, textiles). The factors that appearance of a line of railway to nomic sectors and they were the drew these industries to the effect changes in a regional eco­ harbingers of accelerated change region were available labour, nomy. The existing economic in every region that they tou­ power in the form of hydro-elec­ landscape, the availability of cap­ ched. In Stanstead County and in tricity, and railway accessibility. ital, labour and natural resour­ the Eastern Townships in gene­ ces, as well as entrepreneurial ral, the impacts that the railways The arrival of the CPR in Magog initiative and political factors, all had in the latter nineteenth and coincided with the rapid growth had roles to play. In the Eastern early twentieth century were of the textile industry in the town Townships, the railways made many and varied. Often they and a parallel growth in the pop­ their appearance in a landscape brought changes that were ulation, from 2100 in 1891, to that already had been settled and unforeseen by the eager promo­ 5159 by 1921. Similarly, Coati­ developed for over half a cen­ ters. cook benefited from its easy rail tury. Most of the villages were in access to United States markets place, the outlines of the agricul­ Urbanization and and its textile sector grew in tural frontier were well establi­ Industrialization response. Its population grew shed and an internal road net­ from 1160 in 1871, to 3554 by work of a rudimentary nature From the 1890s to the end of the 1921. was in place. Consequently, the first World War, a wave of indus­ impact of the railway took place trialization swept over the Eas­ Mining within a landscape whose broad tern Townships bringing with it outlines were already establi­ substantial urban growth in cities Throughout the Eastern Town­ shed. In contrast, in the Cana­ such as Sherbrooke, Granby, ships, whose complex geology dian west, where railways lar­ Magog, Coaticook, Drummond­ held much promise for mineral gely preceded settlement, the ville and even to smaller centres development, the mining indus­ agricultural landscape that was such as Beebe and Rock Island. try, involving the movement of subsequently created was direc­ tly and intimately linked to the railway.

In today's lexicon, the term 'globalization' has been coined to describe the various processes by means of which improved communications of all sorts have brought the farthest corners of the world into close social, eco­ nomic and political contact. In the context of the nineteenth cen­ tury, and on a smaller scale, rail­ ways brought a similar effect to North America. The term 'conti- nentalization' might be applied to this phenomenon. Railways linked communities and econo­ mies together across the breadth Northbound Quebec Central Railway freight train at North Hatley, May 10,1955. (Source : D.S. Robinson photo, Derek Booth collection) 1 \ nu: ii n ::

Tourism and Outdoor Recreation

The scenic beauties of the Eastern Townships had been recognized and widely praised long before the railways appeared. However, the arrival of the railway on the shores of the region's major lakes, coupled with the advent of steamboats on these same lakes (Memphré­ magog, Massawippi, Brome and others), made it possible for potential tourists, living as far away as the American eastern seaboard cities, to travel easily and comfortably to enjoy the Quebec Central (Canadian Pacific) train at Ayer's Cliff, August 29,1954. region's outdoor attractions. The (Source : Jim Shaughnessy photo, Derek Booth collectbn) era of resort hotels, such as the Mountain House hotel at the foot relatively large tonnages of fini­ of the coming of the railways of Owl's Head Mountain, began shed products, was one of those was the pulp and paper industry in the latter quarter of the nine­ industries whose development and, to a somewhat lesser extent, teenth century. on any large scale had to await the sawmilling industry. Rail­ the arrival of railways. Such was ways like the Quebec Central Railways also played a major the case for the granite quarrying tapped vast unsettled forest role in providing transportation industry around Graniteville, for areas in the more northerly for regional recreational and the complex of copper mines and townships of the St. Francis and sporting activities. Excursion smelters at Capelton and Eustis, Chaudière river valleys and the trains of all sorts were operated as well as for the extensive asbes­ movement of forest products regularly by all the railways, pro­ tos mining in the Thetford Mines was their lifeblood. viding mobility to the general and Asbestos regions. public in the pre-automobile era. In many of the more southerly Within Stanstead County, the long-settled parts of the Eastern Agriculture granite quarrying industry, cen­ Townships, however, like Stan­ tred in the Graniteville-Beebe stead County, railways produced The effect that the railways had area, was the most conspicuous little stimulus for the forest on agriculture was rather more beneficiary of railway access. It industry. Much of the forested subtle than in the cases of was only a few years after the land in these townships had tourism, mining or manufactu­ completion of the Massawippi already been cleared for farming ring. It is in this area that the rail­ Valley Railway that large-scale by the time the railways arrived ways 'continentalizing' influence quarrying operations began and and the remainder was often was most strongly felt. For over a 2.1-mile railway spur was built fragmented into small farm half a century, a self-contained, from Lineboro to Graniteville to woodlot holdings. In Stanstead largely self-sufficient type of facilitate the export of granite Township, over half of the total mixed farming, based on rela­ products. forested area of the township tively small farms, had grown up had already been cleared by the in the Eastern Townships. The Forest industries time the Massawippi Valley lack of good transportation faci­ Railway was built. lities to markets in Montreal or In the Eastern Townships as a elsewhere can be seen as isola­ whole, the principal beneficiary ting the region, but it can also be seen as protecting a particular agricultural system from outside competition. Railways gave Eas­ tern Townships farmers access to markets beyond the region, but they also gave farmers elsewhere in Canada and the United States access to local markets. With vast new agricultural areas coming into production in the second half of the nineteenth century and up to World War I, many of them more productive than the Eastern Townships farms, local farmers found themselves com­ peting in national and interna­ tional markets rather than merely in regional ones.

The overall result of the railways opening up Eastern Townships to decline and individual farms significant changes had taken farming to outside competition became larger to accommodate place in both the distribution and was to force the region's farmers the needs of the new commercial the cultural composition of the to specialize in those types of dairy farming. population. At mid-nineteenth farming best suited to the region. century, Stanstead's population The pioneer mixed farming eco­ Population movement was over 80 % rural and agricul­ nomy which produced a wide tural and over 90 % English- variety of products, primarily for In addition to making vast new speaking. At the end of the 'rail­ regional markets, gave way to areas in Canada and the United way era', its population was specialization centred around States accessible for farming and composed of approximately 50 % dairying. for other economic activities, the urban dwellers while English- railways brought new attitudes speaking residents accounted for This specialization introduced about personal mobility. It became less than 50 % of the population. two new patterns to Eastern possible for large numbers of peo­ Furthermore, the English-speak­ Townships farming. Through ple, in the Eastern Townships ing population had experienced most of the nineteenth century, and elsewhere, to seriously con­ a substantial absolute decrease the forests had been steadily template long-distance moves over its mid-century levels. pushed back to produce ever and wholesale changes in eco­ more farmland. By the closing nomic lifestyle. And many of the This remarkable demographic decades of the nineteenth centu­ newly accessible parts of the shift was experienced all over the ry, this trend had been reversed American Midwest and the Eastern Townships as the region all over the Townships. Farm Canadian west were very attrac­ became more urbanized and the land was abandoned at a rapid tive to Townshippers. number and acreage of farms rate as marginal land was declined. Accompanying the allowed to revert to forest. That When the first railway passed rural to urban shift was a culture process has continued to the through Stanstead County in change. The spread of railways present day as about one half of 1853, the population of the coun­ through the Eastern Townships all the land originally cleared for ty stood at just over 10 000. By coincided with the beginning of farming has returned to forest of 1881 it had risen to 15 556 and it a massive out-migration of one sort or another. At the same had reached 23 380 by 1921. English-speaking Townshippers time, the number of farms began However, in those seventy years, and a parallel immigration of French-speaking Quebecers, the Townships developed, in the of the Massawippi Valley Rail­ latter destined largely for the period up to 1920, one of the way line, from Lennoxville to growing manufacturing towns. densest railway networks of any Newport, was abandoned in Approximately 50 000 English- part of Canada. 1990. speaking Townshippers left the region between 1860 and 1920, However, as railways lost many Stanstead County's first railway, while an even greater number of of their former transportation the St. Lawrence & Atlantic, is French speakers arrived. It can­ functions to road transport still operating, as is the former not be said that railways directly during the twentieth century, CPR line through Magog (now caused these population chan­ passenger service ended and the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic ges. But they helped to create the many hundreds of miles of rail­ Railway), although neither is right conditions for them to way in the Eastern Townships now a Canadian company. Else­ occur. were abandoned. Stanstead has where across the Eastern Town­ not escaped this phenomenon. ships the railway map has The Shrinking Railway Passenger service to the Town of become skeletal. Throughout the Network Stanstead ended in 1928; on the region, many miles of former rest of the former Massawippi railway rights-of-way have been Because of the strategic location Valley Railway it ended in 1951. converted into recreational trails. of the Eastern Townships in The last passenger train to This has been the case with the terms of international rail lines Coaticook operated in 1978 and portions of the Massawippi and also because of the intense Magog saw its last passenger Valley Railway lying between local demand for branch line rail­ train in 1979. The one-mile spur Lennoxville and North Hatley ways to serve individual commu­ leading to the town of Stanstead and between Ayer's Cliff, Beebe nities and townships, the Eastern was removed in 1956 and the rest and Stanstead. The creation of recreational trails on abandoned railway roadbeds has not been without controversy, but a strong case can be made for the merits of preserving multi-purpose corridors in the landscape. They have been used across Canada to fulfill a multitude of useful func­ tions.

With railways playing such a diminished role in the Eastern Townships of today, it is often difficult to appreciate the full extent to which they dominated the transportation scene within the region and across Canada for the better part of a century. The economic and social landscapes of the Eastern Townships were shaped and drastically altered during that Railway Era.

uebec Central (Canadian Pacific) train at the North Hatley station, May 1954. (Source : Jim Shaughnessy photo, Derek Booth collection)