Living more sustainably is possible. The century ofrnier is full of examples that could now inspire our ecological transition. In his series The History Upside down, The duty probes the memory of those who have known this world more sober in energy and resources.
Not so long ago, Montrealers could jump on the P’tit Train du Nord in the morning, ski in the Laurentians during the day and return to the city the same evening. Pierre L. Charron, born in 1943, remembers very well the sportsmen who, in his childhood, flocked to Shawbridge — a village that is now part of Prévost — with their wooden skis in their hands and their boots on their feet.
“They got off the train and they put on their skis right away, in the street. And they were going, either to a slope or to a cross-country ski trail. They came back the same way in the evening. The most they could have, as luggage, was a small backpack with sandwiches, it was as simple as that, ”says the one whose father was station master in Shawbridge.
More than 75 years ago, the paroxysm of regional public transit already existed in Quebec: a frequent, fast and affordable train service was offered to city dwellers looking for getaways, but also to local populations who had to travel from one village to another. The “last mile problem” was solved on foot, by cart, by cart… or on skis.
On Friday evenings in winter, Mr. Charron saw three trains pass in front of his house (his family lived above the station): the regular train from Mont-Laurier, the one from Labelle and the one from Sainte-Agathe. On Saturday and Sunday, several trains made the round trip. On Sunday evening, additional convoys brought all these beautiful people back to the south. Each train could carry up to 1000 passengers.
You didn’t have to look far to find the ski resorts: they were scattered along the railway, near the stations, whether in Shawbridge, Piedmont or Val-David. Another railroad went in the direction of Saint-Sauveur, where other slopes were just waiting to be descended.
Claude Dumontier, born in 1942, lived in Labelle, very close to the train station. This is where some steam engines turned their noses before heading south again. “The station was a bit like our playground,” he notes. In summer, he met vacationers who had come to enjoy the lakes and, in the fall, those attracted by the colors of the foliage.
In the 1940s, people from the south built small cabins in Labelle. Of course, these new owners went there by train. They “took the key to the fields” for the weekend, from Friday evening to Sunday afternoon, says Mr. Dumontier, who saw these families passing through the station. “The train was very efficient, because the roads we had weren’t that great! he says.
The vacationers went to their chalet on foot, or they hired one of the many carters who came to welcome the train. Some chalets were not accessible by car, but what was the point! “In places, there was no path, it was just a track, a footpath. The guys were raising their wood on sledswinter,” recalls Mr. Dumontier.
The octogenarian remembers the excitement that accompanied the arrival of the passenger train, which usually arrived at the end of the evening in Labelle. “There were a lot of people who came just to see the arrival of the train, it was an event. »
Certain goods – such as milk, meat and mail – arrived by this train, called “the express”. M. Dumontier’s brother gave the butcher a hand to get the large quarters of meat, covered with gauze, out of the wagon and put them on a cart or a truck. The butcher rewarded him with a piece of mortadella.
Fast service that didn’t last long
Robert McGreggor, born in 1940, used the P’tit Train du Nord to spend his summers in Marchand County, between Labelle and Rivière-Rouge, where his grandparents lived. He lived the rest of the year in Montreal, in Little Italy. It was on foot that his family went to the Jean-Talon station, from where the long journey began.
Because this regular train, which stopped in each village, was much slower than the “excursion” trains offered to skiers. ” It was a trip day, says Mr. McGreggor. We arrived late there. When the train stopped at Sainte-Agathe to change engines, it was long. We had to add coal, add water. They were steam trains, not like today. »
And precisely, this steam engine fascinated the little boy, who stuck his head out the window to contemplate the locomotive when the rails bent sufficiently. He received the black smoke in the face. “We arrived at L’Annonciation, we were dirty,” he recalls laughing. As a rule, it was not luxury. The benches, “hard as a rock”, prevented him from sleeping on the train home at the end of the summer.
His maternal grandparents, immigrants from Italy, “lived in poverty” in the Hautes-Laurentides. His grandfather, who worked at the sawmill, had divided his land into three small lots for his three children. Mr. McGreggor’s father had built a shack where, a few times in the summer, all the cousins came to pile up. “We slept on the ground, we put a blanket. We were so stuck that when someone turned, the whole gang was turning,” said the old man, laughing.
In the mid-1950s, Canadian Pacific renewed its rail fleet. The company bought several railcars — much faster cars, each fitted with a diesel engine. The passenger train also ceased to deliver parcels and food, which was entrusted to trucks. The duration of the Montreal–Mont-Laurier trip was therefore reduced from seven hours, by steam, to three hours, in the wagons nicknamed the “Budd”.
New routes were offered. Trains left very early in the morning, both from the north and from the south, and allowed commercial travelers to make their rounds in a single day. A train was returning to Sainte-Agathe around midnight. “People could go to Montreal at midday, spend the evening, see a show, and come back afterwards,” says Mr. Charron who, after his childhood in Shawbridge, worked on rail issues for the Quebec Ministry of Transport.
This new fast service did not last long. At the turn of the 1960s, automobile culture gained momentum. Many families, who then had easier access to credit, bought a vehicle. Highway 15, which made it possible to circumvent the congestion of Saint-Jérôme, opened up new access to the north. In the space of a few years, the transport of passengers on the P’tit Train du Nord, “it was completely over,” laments Mr. Charron.