Monday, 5 November 2012

Train Schedule on the Gaspe

I've been doing my research to determine how many trains once traversed the Chandler and Cascapedia Subdivisions as well as when and how often.  I had it narrowed down, mostly from captions on photos, or talking to Dominique the Stationmaster, Peter the Engineer and Boyd the Conductor in New Carlisle over the years.  When I received my 2012 Trains en Gaspesie calender, there was a booklet in the envelope, which outlined the history of the line, bilingual I might add.  To my surprise, there was a paragraph on train numbers inside!  This, for the most part, finalized what I knew about movements on the line, which I summarized in the table below.


Passenger
Freight
Mixed
1944-1957
Matepedia -Gaspe           (daily)
35/36
Matapedia-New Carlisle
(daily)
510/511
512/513
516/517
544/545

New Carlisle-Gaspe 
(daily)
502-503
504-505
508-509
546-547

Matapedia-Gaspe
(Monday-Saturday)
201-202
No records
1957-1960
Matapedia-Gaspe   (Monday-Saturday)
35/36

Matapedia-Gaspe (Sundays)
71/72
same as above
Matapedia-Gaspe
(Monday-Saturday)
101-102
1960-1970
118/119 (daily) between Matapedia-Gaspe

621/622 (daily) between Montreal-Gaspe

630/631 (daily) between Matapedia-Gaspe
-used railliners 
-"Sputnik"
          
                     
Matapedia-New Carlisle
(Monday-Saturday)
910-911
912-913

New Carlisle-Gaspe
(Monday-Saturday)
902-903

Matapedia-Gaspe
(Monday-Saturday)
747-748
None
1970-1983
-same as above
-sometime in this period 630/631 was dropped 
-same as above 
-sometime in this period 747-748 was dropped
-towards 1980, all freights renumbered to 594/595
None
1983-1998
621/622 became 16/17  (Montreal-Gaspe)
“The Chaleur”
-originally ran daily, but was cut to six days by 1998, later to the current three
594/595 (daily) ran from Campbellton, NB-Gaspe           
                
None


This information is accurate to the best of my knowledge.  It's simply amazing for a line of 202.4 miles to have five separate freights daily.  They really were busy up until the late 1970's it seems.  It should be noted that the Cascapedia Subdivision is 98 miles long, running between Matapedia and New Carlisle and the Chandler Subdivision is 102.4 miles long, stretching from New Carlisle to Gaspe.  During the 1980's until 1998, it was rare for a freight to travel past Chandler more than once a month or so.  At that time copper ore from Murdochville was loaded into 40' boxcars at Sandy Beach (Gaspe) and the main shippers were by far Gaspesia Paper in Chandler and Smurfit Stone in New Richmond.


Now all I have to do is determine things like times, common consists, commodities hauled and so fourth between 1970 and 1980, which is the specific period I would like to model.

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