The land is immense, populated by white birch, black spruce and jack pine. At their feet, rivers. Walleye, northern pike and speckled trout swirl between the rocks and glistening splashes of water. “You are on board train 603. It’s the most beautiful, we won’t hide it! says Ricky to his passengers as soon as they leave Montreal. On the 717 kilometers of railway line that will take it to Senneterre, the Abitibi regional train will transport its passengers in a cheerful and, above all, very folkloric atmosphere. Here, we stop where the passengers want! Travel aboard a train that has nothing to do with a TGV… and that’s good.
“The train will be full today. If you have any questions do not hesitate. There’s me, just me,” joked the director of train services, nicknamed Ricky, as she left Montreal’s Central Station around 7:30 a.m. The journey of train 603 will take him, among other things, over the highest railway bridge in Quebec — the bridge over the Rivière du Milieu, near La Tuque — to reach the Senneterre station some 14 hours after his departure, at sunset. A route that is part of the legendary Transcontinental Railway, which once helped colonize Abitibi.
Already, a few seats are occupied in the train’s only passenger car. Several other people will board further on. First at Joliette and Shawinigan stations. Then, wherever they want between Hervey-Jonction and Senneterre, over a distance of some 384 kilometres.
“Here, we drop you off wherever you want!” explains locomotive engineer Michel Gingras. “Any decimal of a thousand is fine, as long as you let us know soon enough.” (In the railway world, miles still prevail over kilometers in calculating distances.)
To board the train, all you have to do is stand in plain view at the edge of the tracks and wave. “At night, there are people waving flashlights or flash the headlights of their four-wheeler”, adds beside him, amused, Pierre-Luc Tessier, also a locomotive engineer.
Canoe-camping
“We’re a bit like a taxi,” says Ricky to two incredulous friends, who got on the train in Joliette with their canoe and are looking for a place to launch it near the village of Parent, some eight hours later. far.
” The best spot, it is about a kilometer after the village. At this point, you can take the canoe out of the train and put it directly in the river without portaging, “says the flight attendant, Doc Martens at the feet, to Anthony Dupuis and Vincent Landry-Arcand, who nodded, a little surprised to receive such personalized service.
This is the first time that the two men have taken a regional train with their boat. “We will go down the Bazin river and then the Gatineau river for 210 kilometers, to Grand-Remous”, they explain to the To have to. A 10-day canoe-camping trip through bucolic landscapes — and in the probable company of a few flies and mosquitoes.
“It would have taken us the same time to drive to [jusqu’au début de la descente]but someone would have had to bring our car back,” they argue.
Indigenous communities
Just before the locomotive engineers help the two adventurers get their canoe out of the baggage car, Basile Roch, a regular on train 603, which crosses several Aboriginal communities, picks up his guitar and his bag to go out to Parent, where his cottage.
“It’s beautiful there. There’s a trout lake,” he says, a black leather jacket with fringe over his back. But this time, for his two-week stay in the forest, the Atikamekw, who lives in Joliette, won’t have time to tease the fish. “I’m going to cut wood to make myself another chalet. »
A new haven of peace where his guitar tunes and his childhood memories will follow him. “I’ve been on this train since I was a kid,” he says. When I was little, we went to shop for groceries in Senneterre and brought it back by train in the woods to Clova [un village d’une cinquantaine de personnes situé plus loin sur la route]. »
Chanouk Newashish, a young Atikamekw videographer from La Tuque, also dives into his memories each time he boards train 603 to spend a few days in his community, in Weymontachie. “My family had a cabin on the edge of the Blanc reservoir. You’ll see over there, in McTavish, there’s going to be water on each side of the train. It’s as if we were sailing on water, ”he slips, his eyes shining.
At that time, passengers could smoke on the train, and a dining car was located at the rear of the convoy. “We weren’t allowed to go there because it was also a bar, but we went there anyway in secret, he continues with a smile. It smelled of smoke all over the train! »
At night, the children took out their pillows and slept in small alcoves behind the seats, he says.
Track
“There are also some who slept upstairs, in the luggage racks,” adds François Béland, who is going today with his friend Robert Mailhot to his chalet near Bourmont, at mile 188.45. “It is precisely there that we will disembark. »
Like other passengers, the two men have no choice but to take train 603 to get to their chalet, which is only accessible by train. They are no worse off, on the contrary. “We let ourselves be driven and we meet the other regulars, say the two companions. It’s like a campaign train. »
Sometimes people play music and stories of hunting and fishing circulate from one seat to another, says Michel Rousseau, who has traveled the railway line for 30 years to get to his camps located in Coquar.
Today, the man, his family and friends loaded the baggage car with boat motors, a ladder, fishing rods and an impressive array of bins. “We have clothes, food, tools. “And maybe also a few beers…
“We are really happy that the train has resumed service three times a week [depuis le début de l’été] “, adds his daughter-in-law, Tatiana Tessier, visibly delighted that Via Rail has decided to end its pandemic schedule. “We were going crazy with a train once a week. You can only get to our chalet by train. »
Deliveries
This decrease in the frequency of departures has also had an impact on other services offered by Via Rail’s 603 route. Vaccines are sometimes sent by train, as are medical samples. Mail also gets on board. And several people have their groceries delivered to the Clova wharf by the train coming from Senneterre.
All that train 603 lacks today is a car with a panoramic dome to fully enjoy the charm of its journey. “There was one when I was young. You could see everywhere,” recalls François Rousseau, seated across from his father, Michel, as the train approaches their camp at Coquar. At the sound of the whistle and doors opening, the friendly band only takes a few minutes to unload all their gear from the baggage car. ” Hi ! See you Thursday night! Ricky yells waving at them.
The train then sets off again towards Senneterre, sinking ever deeper into the magnetism of Abitibi. “It’s a wonderful journey. There are lynxes, moose and wolves that sometimes run on the tracks in front of us,” say locomotive engineers Pierre-Luc Tessier and Michel Gingras.
A spectacle which also unfolds through the windows of the passenger car, and which can only be observed at the speed of a regional train.