Gaspésie Railway | Protecting the rails from a fearsome sea

The ongoing renovation of the Gaspésie railway will be followed by work to protect it against coastal erosion and submersion, Quebec plans, which wants to protect the rails from the growing consequences of climate change.

Stone laying, beach replenishment, construction of protective structures or moving of rails; various scenarios are being considered to protect the Gaspé railway from the assaults of the sea, details the environmental authorization request filed by the Ministry of Transport and Sustainable Mobility (MTMD).

The network was purchased in 2015 by the Quebec government from the Société du chemin de fer de la Gaspésie, a public company. Six separate sites totaling just over 11 kilometres of railway tracks are involved, all on the section between Port-Daniel–Gascons and Gaspé, which is scheduled to reopen in 2026.

Located in Gaspé, Percé, Grande-Rivière and Chandler, these sites are particularly “sensitive to submersion during periods of high tides, which occur towards the end of fall,” explained The Press engineer Michel Couture, engineering team leader responsible for the Gaspésie railway at the MTMD.

Waves have often caused significant damage in the past: erosion of the railway foundation material (ballast), subsidence and deformation of certain sections of the track, progressive silting up of the track preventing effective drainage of the railway foundation, obstruction of the track by large debris such as trees and blocks of ice.

“Climate change means dynamic weather, so these phenomena have intensified over time and are evolving,” says Mr. Couture.

The protection works are therefore planned according to the calculations of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicting a rise in sea level of 50 centimetres by 2075, indicates the MTMD.

Gradual return to service

The renovation of the Gaspésie railway, begun in 2017, should be completed in 2026, after an investment of $872 million, excluding coastal protection work.

A first section, between Matapédia and Caplan, reopened in 2020, and a second, between Caplan and Port-Daniel–Gascons, should reopen by the end of the year, with the final works being completed in the New Carlisle and Port-Daniel–Gascons sectors.

The renovation of the third and final section, between Port-Daniel–Gascons and Gaspé, began in May and should therefore last two years; this is the section requiring the most significant work, taking up nearly 60% of the budget envelope, even though it only represents 39% of the total route.

The coastal protection work will be carried out after the railway is fully back in service, a delay mainly attributable to the fact that it is subject to the strictest environmental assessment procedure under Quebec legislation, because it will take place in wetlands or aquatic environments.

The MTMD must therefore carry out an impact study, which it plans to submit by the end of the year, and the Bureau d’audiences publiques sur l’environnement (BAPE) could then be called upon to evaluate the project.

“It’s still very long, there are a lot of steps,” says Michel Couture, who is planning to start work no later than 2027, for a duration of three years.

This delay will not affect the safe passage of trains, he assures, but a major storm could damage the rails before the protection work is completed, as has often happened in the past.

The “challenge” of the next century

Protecting major infrastructures such as railways against climate change “will be the great engineering challenge of the next century,” says Michel Couture, who does not rule out the possibility that protective measures may one day be required elsewhere on the Gaspésie railway.

The engineer mentions the possibility that retaining walls may be required on the section between Caplan and Port-Daniel–Gascons, which is located largely on cliffs.

The section between Matapédia and Caplan is less vulnerable, says Mr. Couture, because it is “much less in a coastal environment” than the other two.

The repair of the Gaspésie railway has long been requested in the region, particularly by companies that use it or plan to use it for the transport of goods.

VIA Rail has also committed to restoring passenger service there, which was abandoned in 2013; the Crown corporation says it has undertaken an assessment of the work needed to modernize its stations, but has not yet determined when service will resume.