Deux-Montagnes Line (AMT)

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The Deux-Montagnes line is a commuter railway line operated in the Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada area, by the Agence métropolitaine de transport, or AMT, (in English, the ‘Metropolitan transport agency’), the umbrella organization that plans, integrates, and coordinates public transport services across this region.

1 Overview
2 History
3 List of stations
4 See also
5 External links
- 5.1 Pertaining to the tunnel

[edit] Overview

This line links Gare Centrale in downtown Montreal with Deux-Montagnes to the northwest of the Island of Montreal.

The line offers frequent service during rush hours (10–30 minute intervals) and hourly service outside rush hours on weekdays. There is less frequent service on Saturdays and Sundays.

The trains are owned and managed by the Agence métropolitaine de transport, and operated by Canadian National's Montrain division. Today, more than 33,000 people ride this train daily, more than Montreal’s four other commuter railway lines combined.

[edit] History

See Mount Royal Tunnel for additional information.

The Deux-Montagnes line was built by the Canadian Northern Railway. While other railways including Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk Railway already had prime downtown locations for their terminal stations, Canadian Northern did not, having only a station out of the way on Moreau Street in Hochelaga.

In 1910, it was decided that the best way for Canadian Northern to get downtown was to drill their way downtown — through Mont Royal. The construction started at both ends and met half way through with only an inch difference. In 1918 the electrified, double-track 3.2 mile tunnel was dubbed Montreal’s first subway. Because the tunnel is inadequately ventilated [1] [2], it was decided from the very beginning that the locomotives would be electric. The ventilation shaft is located SW of the intersection of Édouard-Montpetit Boulevard and Vincent-d'Indy Avenue (formerly Maplewood Avenue and Bellingham Road) very close to the Édouard-Montpetit Metro Station. [3] [4]

The structure gauge of the Mount Royal Tunnel limits the height of bilevel cars to 14'-6" or 4420 mm [5].

In order to finance the project, Canadian Northern built a ‘model city’ north of the tunnel, modelled after Washington, D.C. The Town of Mount-Royal has grown to be a very upper-class neighbourhood today. Construction began in 1912 and finished in 1918. The first train was #601 (retired as #6711), which left Gare Centrale at 8:30 a.m. on October 21, 1918. The Canadian Northern Railway went bankrupt and was absorbed into what is now Canadian National.

In the 1960s, the first plans were announced to renovate the line, whose equipment was 40 years old at the time. First, it was to become metro line 3, but plans were shelved because of the importance to build line 4 for service to Expo 67. With the equipment ageing, and ridership declining, CN wanted to close the line in the 1970s, but their proposals were rejected. The Quebec Ministry of Transport considered using the line for a high-speed connection to Mirabel Airport (Transport rapide régional aéroportuaire Montréal Mirabel, 1974) or as the first line of a BART-style regional metro system (Réseau express de Montréal, 1977; Métro régional, 1979). None of these projects progressed beyond the planning stage.

In 1982, the fares for the trains were integrated with the fares for the Metro and buses. The fare was two bus tickets. This was later reduced to one from Gare Centrale to Val-Royal (now Bois-Franc).

In 1992, the government of Quebec announced a modernisation plan for the line which would include 58 state-of-the-art electrical multiple-unit trains built by Bombardier Transportation, new tracks, and centralised traffic control. Service was shut down completely in the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995 to allow for major work to be done. The last of the old rolling stock left Gare Centrale at 6:30 p.m. on June 2, 1995 - 76 years, 8 months, 11 days, and ten hours after it first went into service. The same locomotive, #6711 (with #6710), hauled the last train through the tunnel.

[edit] List of stations

The following stations are on the Deux-Montagnes line:

Station	Location	Connections
Gare Centrale	Montreal	VIA Rail, Amtrak, and Downtown Terminus (Terminus RTL). Bonaventure metro station, Société de transport de Montréal (STM) 150, 358, 410, 430, 535, 935 (within walking distance along René Lévesque Boulevard), 61, 75, 168, 420 (On University Street), 74, 75 (On rue de la Gauchetière) .
Canora	border between Mount-Royal and Montreal	STM 92, 160 (less than 200 metres south), 372.
Mount-Royal	Mount-Royal	STM 16, 119, 165, 535.
Montpellier	Saint Laurent	STM 121, 128, 171, 378, 380.
Du Ruisseau	border of Saint Laurent and Montreal	STM 117, 135.STL (Laval) 44, 46, 55
Bois-Franc	border of Saint Laurent and Montreal	STM 64, 126, 164, 170, 215, 382. STL Routes 44, 46, 55, 144, 151. AMT Express route 902.
Sunnybrooke	Pierrefonds-Roxboro /Dollard-des-Ormeaux	STM 68, 208, 213, 268(Train Bus), 382.
Roxboro-Pierrefonds	Pierrefonds-Roxboro	STM 68, 205, 206, 208, 209, 213, 265(TB),268(TB), 382.
Île-Bigras	Laval (Île Bigras)	STL No buses.
Sainte-Dorothée	Laval (Sainte-Dorothée)	STL Routes 44, 72, 144, T06.
Grand-Moulin	Deux-Montagnes	CIT Laurentides [6] 80
Deux-Montagnes	Deux-Montagnes	CIT Laurentides Routes 80, 88 (Connection to Sainte-Thérèse station), 89, 90, 92