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Montréal Transit Developments
- Thread starter Ansem
- Start date
CharmAlarm
Active Member
Meanwhile....
3 Metro stations on Montreal's Blue line could be closed for weeks due to safety issues
felix123
Active Member
Urban Sky
Senior Member
This might just be semantics, but the Scarborough RT was already slated for decommissioning and its
Note to myself (2024-10-07): make sure to reread messages after posting…
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felix123
Active Member
Sure, but a metro line built in the 80's should never have been slated for decommissioning in the 2020s.
Northern Light
Superstar
The rolling stock was replaceable, and the Guideway was structurally fine.
The reality is that the line was at capacity, and was unable to accommodate newer versions of the 'Sky Train' technology, essentially because of of the tunnelled curve taking the line from N-S to E-W and vice versa.
It simply couldn't handle longer train cars/trains. The TTC's 'Mark 1' versions of the technology haven't been made for years, and several cars had already been de-commissioned due to age or crashes or the like.
So to upgrade the line with new equipment meant shuttering it for 2.5 years minimum to rebuild the offending tunnel. Additionally, only 2 of the six stations were long enough to support longer trains, and so would have required significant work to expand them and upgrade them.
In light of that, and the long standing desire to expand the line further north and east..........the choice was made to replace it with a subway. However, the endless nonsense at Toronto City Hall led to different schemes being cancelled/altered/reinstated multiple times.
Meanwhile, the TTC understood that there was no future for the line as is, with its 'orphan' technology and so scaled backed any plans to sustain it for the longer term.
nfitz
Superstar
Any updates on the LRT tunnel under the Lachine Canal on Wellington? Opened in about 1933, with streetcar operations suspended in 1956 after only 23 years?
They finally restored local rail transit as the REM bridge over the canal is only about 75 metres to the east; but they forgot to build any stations in Montreal for it!
North Entrance in 2010s
South Entrance in 1936
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Wow, I always wondered what that was for!Any updates on the LRT tunnel under the Lachine Canal on Wellington? Opened in about 1933, with streetcar operations suspended in 1956 after only 23 years?
They finally restored local rail transit as the REM bridge over the canal is only about 75 metres to the east; but they forgot to build any stations in Montreal for it!
North Entrance in 2010s
View attachment 602329
South Entrance in 1936
View attachment 602337
Northern Light
Superstar
Wow, I always wondered what that was for!
Some more info, and pictures for you:
The Wellington tunnel
Abandoned, barricaded and destroyed at the south entry of the Lachine Canal, the tunnel Wellington currently offers lack of interest for urban exploration (can't go inside). Back in 1990, it permanently ceases its activities with the official opening of the Wellington bridge located next to the...
www.urbexplayground.com
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Also, @nfitz how do you know about this.........you're not Walter's age and you don't live in Montreal............ LOL
Urban Sky
Senior Member
Thanks, and I believed he lived here, though probably around the time that tunnel was closed (and I was born)…Some more info, and pictures for you:
The Wellington tunnel
Abandoned, barricaded and destroyed at the south entry of the Lachine Canal, the tunnel Wellington currently offers lack of interest for urban exploration (can't go inside). Back in 1990, it permanently ceases its activities with the official opening of the Wellington bridge located next to the...
****
Also, @nfitz how do you know about this.........you're not Walter's age and you don't live in Montreal............ LOL
nfitz
Superstar
I lived there for much of the 1980s. Even back then, it was pretty obvious what it was for - and cars were still using the car tunnels back then as far as I remember; I'm not quite sure when that bridge got built, as it doesn't stick in my mind. I wasn't around in the 1950s when they closed the streetcar portion.
And a couple of questions back then confirmed that it was for streetcars on Wellington Street.
I can't remember much more obvious infrastructure remaining. Though some of the (then) MUCTC bus loops had evidently been for streetcars. Though Atwater on the east side of the Market (as opposed to the other Atwater on the west and north side of the Market) always seemed odd to me; though I never researched it. Wasn't there a wider bridge there in the 1980s, though I thought it was barricaded for cars?
Northern Light
Superstar
Were you a child?
I never lived in Montreal, so I'll leave that to the resident experts to answer!
nfitz
Superstar
Depends what a child was. I was a teenager when I moved there in 1980 - and I had full run of the city from day one, living near Vendome (which meant for me the 105 went to Atwater!). I came and went a bit in the late 1980s, and last lived there regularly in 1991. But there's family still there - and the old house.
Used to take Wellington mostly to get to the Victoria Bridge and the 116 - which was often faster than the Champlain. I don't recall doing that though since the early 1990s, heading to St. Lambert. That was always a freaky bridge to drive on ... especially when a train came! Google Streetview shows little change.
Northern Light
Superstar
A teenager, in 1980; you're older than me! Who knew? I remember you having, the last time you discussed it, young kids (probably an eon ago, LOL); so I always pictured you as a bit younger than me.
I'm ~ a decade younger than you it would seem............ Colour me shocked.
Towered
Superstar
*ahem* not everyone has kids in their young years...