Behind The Curtain (28 April, 2023)
Sometimes answering one question can create so many more questions, and lead you down a rabbit hole of your own fascination that you can only escape through literal cracks in the ground. Trust me, that will make sense by the end of this piece.
Let’s start at the beginning. Last week right here I shared a photo and asked where in Montreal it was taken. Some people got it right away, others got close, but no cigar. Dawn McSweeney was one of latter, despite the fact that I have personally eaten lunch at a restaurant with her and a few other people just a three minute walk from the location (Andrew, I didn't expect you to get it, and you didn't. It wasn't anywhere near the Plateau and I’ve seen you unable to navigate your way to NDG…when you lived there.) As for those of you I don’t know personally, I imagine there were debates, analysis, people fanning out throughout the city to try and find the secret spot, and waiting with bated breath for the next Behind The Curtain to come out. Well, my imaginary hordes, and all real people reading this, too, the time has come. Here, once again, is the image:
This photo was taken at the Atwater entrance to the Lachine Canal in St-Henri, just past the Atwater Market to the west and the Super C grocery store and SAQ to the east. You can see the footbridge over the canal in the background. But what about the train tracks embedded in the ground and the train crossing sign without any barrier or lights in the foreground? You know, the visual cues I used to give people the impression the photo was taken on the West Island, or at least somewhere not that central. Well, that’s where this story takes a turn, and where my attempt to encourage people to discover their city led me to actually discover something about the city myself.
It turns out that this is an active rail line. In fact, it’s the oldest active rail line in Montreal. It was built in 1847 as The Montreal and Lachine Railroad to connect Bonaventure Station to the Saint-Laurent River at the Lachine Rapids. It was absorbed into the Grand Trunk Railway about a decade later. These days, it is used to transport grain, according to my friend, FTB co-founder, and St-Henri resident who knows stuff, Laurence Tenenbaum. Freight trains traverse these tracks twice a day, that is if they are the same tracks that start a bit to the east and pass on the other side of a park across from another friend’s condo. Another friend told myself, and a group, this factoid when we were drinking in said park a while back. (Editor’s Note: Come on, Jason, dig a little deeper.) Fine! I reached out to CN Media Relations for Quebec, and Julien Bédard got back to me, confirming that they are active tracks that connect to the CN network at Saint-Ambroise street and end “at a client’s facility near George-Vanier Boulevard”. Bédard noted that “for security reasons, CN does not disclose which products move on which lines, at which volumes and at what times”. However, a quick look at the Canadian Rail Atlas he provided shows these tracks ending at Arden Mills Montreal Mill, so grain, as Laurence said, seems correct. I’m still waiting for confirmation on the frequency of trips.
Personally, I’ve never seen a freight train pass behind the Atwater Market, and I’ve been to that spot many times. It really gives off “this is just a historical tribute” vibes, and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way. There’s a now-closed Reddit thread from a few years back where people are complaining about being ticketed by CN Rail police for walking beside these tracks just a little bit away from this location. Their point is valid: there are no warning signs, no “private property” signs. I’ve lived near train tracks before in NDG, and it was clear that you were trespassing if you jumped the fence or went through a hole in it. (Editor’s Note: You’re welcome for the holes, Jason.) But here there is no fence, and there are no trains, for the most part. Ticketing trespassers feels like more of a cash grab than a safety issue.
And speaking of safety and trains, this Tweet from the STM’s Metro Green Line account showed up mid-rush hour (around 5pm) on Monday afternoon:
Service interruption? That’s regular. Green Line down from Lionel-Groulx to Frontenac? Probably something happened at Berri-UQAM (because it’s one of the few stations where they can re-route trains). Because of an “incident”? It’s a pretty common, pretty vague explanation. Service expected to resume at 2am? Wait, what? It must be a typo. That’s far too long to wait for an “incident” to be resolved and the metro isn’t even open at 2am. Soon the projected time was replaced by “indeterminate period”. The STM announced that crews had found cracks in the tunnel between St-Laurent and Berri-UQAM stations and the shutdown was borne out of extreme caution.
The City of Montreal, at the STM’s request, barred heavy trucks from the stretch of de Maisonneuve Boulevard between St-Laurent and Berri, and then simply blocked the street off entirely until further notice. Special buses were in place to carry commuters between Berri-UQAM and Frontenac and people were encouraged to traverse downtown via the Orange Line. Montreal was set for a chaotic rush hour on Tuesday morning, with those of us working from home pondering the state of our aging infrastructure from the sidelines. Turns out that would not come to pass, as crews working overnight determined that the fissures were “superficial” and posed no risk to the integrity of the tunnel or the rest of the network. St-Laurent Metro, along with the rest of the central part of the Green Line, was built in 1967, so while I’m glad this was a false alarm, I’m also glad to know that the infrastructure inspections that led to this discovery are ongoing on this particular stretch of track.
The full Green Line resumed service at 5am. I like to think, though, that the STM made the determination at 2am, thereby making that seemingly ill-informed and slapped-together tweet an accurate predictor of what was to come. Now, for what’s to come in this space, it’s once again time for…
NOTES THIS WEEK
Funny People: I can be a real funny guy. I've done sketch comedy, hosted a comedic talk show, written song parodies, performed original funny songs (along with a guitarist) at a comedy open-mic, played an intentionally bad standup in a show, and I've injected humour into ghost tours, political articles, and even casual conversation. The one thing I haven't tried is outright, for real, standup. My comedy always needs to be in the context of something else. I have interviewed comedians over the years and been to quite a few shows (generally JFL) and have always admired the guts it must take to go out there and kill it, or at least to die trying. Even more those who try and make a career out of it. This week Abby Stonehouse wrote about the Third Floor Comedy Club as part of our ongoing Venue Series. To quote Abby, a successful comic in her own right, it's a place "by comics, for comics, and ultimately for the audience". I'll let you read why spaces like this are so important in our city and will only add that I like a place that is clear with its naming. Pizza St-Henri is a pizza place in St-Henri. 3rd Floor Comedy Club is a comedy club on the 3rd floor.
Rates to Rise: While the STM has been doing so well lately, what with giving free transit to seniors starting in July and, as I mentioned above, preventing disaster, the provincial organization that controls their ticket pricing, the Autorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARMT), is hiking rates. Starting July 1st, single tickets go up a quarter to $3.75, two ticket sets go up to $7 and a monthly pass will set you back $97 instead of $94 (I remember when they were still in the $80-$90 range, just a few years ago, I believe). These rates are all for bus and metro travel on the Island of Montreal, aka Zone A in STM-speak. Zone B rates seem largely unaffected, and while Unlimited Evening and Unlimited Weekend passes have gone up a bit, they now encompass all zones. If they really wanted to encourage transit as a way to travel onto or off the island, they should let your Zone A pass work to enter the Metro on the South Shore or Laval, which they currently do not.
NDG Again?: On Tuesday, roughly 500 000 homes lost power in Quebec. Fortunately, Hydro-Quebec got most of them back up in a few hours. The outage this time, according to Hydro, was due to a problem at the Churchill Falls generating station. Where did this affect Montreal? Mostly in NDG and parts of the Plateau. Sound familiar? Those were the same areas hit hardest by the mini-ice storm a few weeks ago. Sure, this time Westmount and Côte Saint-Luc were also affected, so it wasn’t a complete repeat, but still.
Well that’s it for this week. I’ve got parody lyrics to the song at the top of this post that I co-wrote with my brother that involve the Montreal Metro. If you’re really nice, I might share them next week. Until next Friday!
FTB Founder Jason C. McLean will return every Friday for another installment in his series, Behind The Curtain.
