Heliomass📖
“What If Every City Had a London Overground?” https://www.dwell.com/article/what-if-every-city-had-a-london-overground-ac7a7ff9
____
Question for Montrealers: In a perfect world, what existing rail infrastructure around the city could be used to create useful and potentially popular new lines?
#London #Montreal #transit
Enviro Montreal@heliomass@mstdn.ca Isn't the REM supposed to be exactly that?
Jean-Francois Mezei@heliomass@mstdn.ca The Repentigny , Mascouche and Terrebonne stations could be retasked for a new line on the Québec-Gatineau tracks to St-Martin Jct instead of using CN tracks to now nowhere, and then follow same route to Lucier l'Allier as the St-Jérome trains. EXo really lacks ambition. When REM pulled the rug from under their fee, they should have rerouted the Train de l'Est via Laval/St-Martin.
Of course, the urtimate is to not only extend the Vaudreuil line back to Rigaud but extend it to Trim so it connects to the Ottawa LRT to officoally make Ottawa a suburbn of Montréal as it should be 😉
You can take commuter trains from New Haven Connecticut all the way to Newark Delaware ( Metro North, NJ Transit, SEPTA) and just south of Newark DE, you can catch MARC trains to Washington DC and then VRE trains to Frederisksburg Virginia. All on public transit. So connecting EXO trains to Ottawa LRT isnt all that extraordinary !
Jean-Francois Mezei@heliomass@mstdn.ca In terms of existing infrastructure, EXO/AMT has, to its credit, re-oppened many closed lines since the 1980s (and prevented loss of Rigaud and Deux Montagnes line, thouhh the later was lost in 2020).
It is more of a matter of getting decent frequencies on all of them, and perhaps extending the Candiac line to Farnham as it used to be when CP ran the service. (and even to Sherbrooke while we're at it).
EXO on CN line to Coteau du Lac serving Vaudreuil, Les Cèdres Coteau (with buses to Valleyfield or even get the train to back to Valleyfield after Coteau stop). The Vaudreuil to Coteau area has grown quite a bit in the last couple of decades.
Had they connected Mirabel airport to the nearby tracks for either CN or CP, we would still have the airport and could have done away with DOrval. Then again, the REM would have killed the service which needs the Deux Montagnes line.
Jean-Francois Mezei@heliomass@mstdn.ca This would require some reconstructionn to reconnect the CSX (formely New York central) tracks from beauharnois to the CP rail tracks south of Mercier bridge, but would allow service from Luciel L'allier to Chateaugay, Beauharnois and Valleyfield.
The tracks connecting to CP south of Mercier bridge still gaev a very visible scar.
When CP bought Delaware and Hudson , it had its own tracks to USA and wasn't interested in doing business with CSX which was now a competitor.
Heliomass@jfmezei@mstdn.ca Those are really cool ideas. I agree, exo has zero ambition, as does the ARTM in my opinion. I was thinking about the CP freight line from the port through Hochelaga and Rosemont might be a good start. They could do what they did with the original O-Train in Ottawa.
Jean-Francois Mezei@heliomass@mstdn.ca The line through Hochelaga used to be CP's mainline out of downtown. Back then its main train station was the Gare Viger and it was connected onto the the port tracks that went up to Hochelaga and Outremont. Québec and Ottawa reached vua Laval and eventually tracks went through DOrion were built and as was Windsor station and trains moved there eventually. Of course would be fairly hard to re-establisgh it as a statrion with all that has been built to block tracks betwene it and the port, but Notre Dame is still elevated today due to tracks formerly passing under it.
A tram between the port up to Préfontaine metro and then along tracks to Rosemont metro could be interesting. Make it "train" so it can operate on railroad (as does SNCF in certain tram lines in Paris).
Having a tram on the port tracks in old montreal that travels east to your neck of woods would be interesting.
Jean-Francois Mezei@heliomass@mstdn.ca The line through Hochelaga used to be CP's mainline out of downtown. Back then its main train station was the Gare Viger and it was connected onto the the port tracks that went up to Hochelaga and Outremont. Québec and Ottawa reached vua Laval and eventually tracks went through DOrion were built and as was Windsor station and trains moved there eventually. Of course would be fairly hard to re-establisgh it as a statrion with all that has been built to block tracks betwene it and the port, but Notre Dame is still elevated today due to tracks formerly passing under it.
A tram between the port up to Préfontaine metro and then along tracks to Rosemont metro could be interesting. Make it "train" so it can operate on railroad (as does SNCF in certain tram lines in Paris).
Having a tram on the port tracks in old montreal that travels east to your neck of woods would be interesting.