REM’s Édouard-Montpetit station | 70 meters underground

Carved into the rock up to 70 meters below the surface, the future Édouard-Montpetit station of the Réseau express métropolitain (REM) will be the deepest in Canada. “It is a site worthy of what is done in the Far North”, but dug in the rock in an urban environment, less than five meters from a busy pavilion of the University of Montreal, summarizes the engineer Jean- Philippe Pelletier, from CDPQ Infra. Photo tour.

Tristan Péloquin
Press

Alain Roberge
Press

Caution and ingenuity

Erected where the former entrance to the Édouard-Montpetit metro station was (blue line), the steel structure of the REM station is just the tip of the iceberg of an impressive maze of tunnels. concrete dug since the summer of 2018 in the heart of Mount Royal. The designers had to show ingenuity to manage to perform “microdynamics” and drill a 70-meter-deep hole so close to the university establishment, to a major pipe for the water distribution network and to various structures. utilities.

High speed elevators

To get here, 50 meters underground, REM passengers will be able to use one of five high-speed elevators that will transport them from the surface to the station in 20 seconds. Behind the orange canvas is another descent, which leads, 20 meters below, to the tunnel under Mount Royal, a century-old infrastructure that was used before the start of work for the Montreal – Deux-Montagnes commuter train line.

“The equivalent of a 20-story building, but underground”

“The workers had to build the equivalent of a 20-story building, but underground,” explains engineer Jean-Philippe Pelletier, responsible for the Deux-Montagnes sector at CDPQ Infra. Above the visible steel structure (which will be covered with architectural elements), 12 technical floors house the massive tunnel ventilation system, electrical systems and emergency equipment. In black, on the vault, we can see a membrane that is used to collect runoff water, which will be pumped to the city’s sewers.

Travel of travelers

An escalator will cover the remaining 20 meters between the exit of the high-speed elevators and the tunnel under Mount Royal, at the far end of the station. Passengers can also reach the REM platform via a pedestrian tunnel linked to the Édouard-Montpetit metro station, which takes about two minutes on foot. “It is shorter than going from the orange line to the yellow line at the Berri-UQAM metro station”, illustrates Jean-Vincent Lacroix, communications director of CDPQ Infra.

One train every two and a half minutes during rush hour

The operator of the cement mixer, stationed where the REM tracks will be, is about to dump the rest of his cement cargo at the location where the station’s future wharf will be. A train will stop there every two and a half minutes (during rush hour) to transport passengers to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue, Pierre-Elliott-Trudeau airport and Deux-Montagnes.

At McGil station in three minutes

In the other direction, south, the REM will transport passengers to McGill station, in downtown Montreal, in just three minutes. From there, they will have access to the metro.

35,000 cubic meters of rock excavated

The tunnel under Mount Royal, dug from 1912 to 1918, was used to pass around sixty trains a day previously. With the REM, this number will increase to 500 per day, which requires the installation of powerful fans two meters in diameter to bring the installation up to standard. To dig the station, approximately 35,000 cubic meters of rock were excavated and then transported to a facility where the rock was crushed to be reused for the foundations of the railway tracks.

Past attempts

As soon as the metro was built in 1961, its designers had the idea of ​​using the tunnel under Mount Royal to build the “red line” that was to link Ahuntsic-Cartierville to downtown Montreal. In 1983, the mayor Jean Drapeau even presented this plan, which planned to make the users go down and up by stairs, but the project was eventually abandoned.