Proposed closure of Montreal commuter rail lines

Advertise with us
shop deals on amazon
Shop deals on ebay
Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum

Help Support Amtrak Unlimited Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
R

Rasputin

Conductor
AU Supporting Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2019
Messages
1,865
Rasputin said:
Here is a link to an article about the proposed closure of certain Montreal commuter rail lines. I don't understand the history of this issue but I understand that controversial decisions have been made in the past few years. There seems to be some suggestions that they don't even have a concept of a plan:

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/3-exo-commuter-train-lines-closure-artm-1.7320278
Click to expand...
"As of March, Mascouche was at 20 per cent of its 2020 ridership, whereas Mont-Saint-Hilaire stood at 35 per cent and Candiac at 53 per cent."
 
jiml said:
This has been the subject of recent discussion in rail groups here. Local expert @Urban Sky made some excellent observations in another forum which, if he chooses to share here, clear up some of the misconceptions or omissions in the media accounts.
Click to expand...
I believe the CBC article’s following statement is very accurate:

Inflationary pressure and changes in commuter behaviour since the COVID-19 pandemic played important roles in the need to cut costs, the report says. And it notes that closing the Deux-Montagnes line, the busiest Exo line which will be replaced by the Réseau express métropolitain (REM), had a significant impact on its budget.

One should recall that the Deux-Montagnes line was the by-far most popular exo route (representing maybe 40% of its total ridership) and also the only electrified passenger rail corridor (state-of-the-art 25kV, like the TGV, Shinkansen and Acela Express) in this country. More crucially, it was one of only two corridors (the other being the Vaudreuil-Hudson line) which operated off-peak services beyond the token counter-peak and noon trains, which would have made it more resiliant to the post-pandemic work environment which have battered the other much more commuter-oriented services.

I can‘t stress enough that exo‘s entire network has suffered from decade-long neglect and underinvestments whereas that of Metrolinx in Toronto has thrived with all-day-2-directions service now expanded to 6 of its 9 routes (Lakeshore West, UnionPearson, Kitchener, Barrie, Stouffville and Lakeshore East), but the impact of the REM providing a much more frequent (and thus attractive) service (while absorbing exo‘s most important route) has certainly made an already bleak situation much worse…
 
Last edited:

Latest posts

Back
Top