Motor 719 in orange & black

The Chemin de fer terminal de Montréal (formerly the Montreal Terminal Railway, but many of the staff supported Quebéc separatism and insisted that the railroad name should be in la langue française, which the Parsons Vale Trust had absolutely no problem with) was a joint property of the PV&T & LT&L – and is now a separate railroad subsidiary of the trust – operating freight lines in Quebéc and Ontario and (through subsidiary ILW) selling their home-designed diesel locomotives to railways in North America.

For the first century of its existance, it was a nondescript terminal railroad giving the PV&T and LT&L access to Montréal and the surrounding suburbs, but it gained fame near the end of the 1950s by continuing to operate steam until it was forceably dieselised by the PV&T after the 1962 merger, then by obsessively sticking with Alco power (including ¾’s of the existing Alco DL-109 multipurpose locomotives) for many decades after Alco & MLW went out of business.

TdM History

Note: TdM North is the TdM lines northwest of the Saint Lawrence; South is, obviously, not that.

1850
Montreal and Southern Railway founded.
1864
M&S converted to standard gauge from 5" gauge.
1871
M&S purchased by the LC&T.
1880
  • MTRR formed by merger of Montreal and Southern Railway with PV&T and LT&L terminal services.
  • PV&T and LT&L locomotives pooled for operation of the line.
1885
built Brossard to Marieville (including trackage rights on the Central Vermont from Richelieu to the outskirts of Marieville)
1886
  • built Boucherville to Victoriaville
  • started construction of a bridge over the Saint Lawrence at Verchéres
1889
  • built the MTRR South mainline from Boucherville to Verchéres
  • … and MTRR North from the Verchéres bridge along the north side of the river west to Hawkesbury, Ontario
1895
  • extended MTRR South from Brossard to Ormstown, with a branch to Saint-Louis-de-Gonzague
1902
built branches from Repentigny to Rawdon & Saint-Jérôme
1915
built Plattsburg branch (with trackage rights over Delaware & Hudson and its subsidiary Napierville Junction.)
1912
1500 VDC electrification Montréal to Iberville.
1913
MTRR 1-4, 700-hp steeplecabs, purchased for freight operations on the newly electrified Iberville line.
1918
  • Canadian Northern electrification, 2400VDC Montréal to Cartierville.
  • MTRR Electrification converted to 3000VDC (2400 between Gare Central and Saint-Lambert) to match parent PV&T’s electrification.
1930
  • PV&T electrification reaches Saint Albans.
  • MTRR extends their Iberville electrification down into the United States to meet the PV&T electrification (giving electrified routes to both Portland, ME and Boston, MA.)
1938
MTRR 101-107, 2-8-2 steam, purchased.
1940
MTRR 300-306 transferred from LT&L.
1946
MTRR 201-203 transferred from PV&T (101-103).
1961
Merged into PV&T
1962
Dieselised.
1966
MTRR North, and the eastern half of MTRR South, electrified to complete the LT&L’s Ottawa<->Québec electrification.
1970
Officially renamed to the (previously unofficial, but almost universally used) french version of the name – Chemin de fer Terminal de Montréal.

more-or-less compete TdM locomotive roster (1913-1961)

Most of the motors and diesel locomotives on the TdM were assigned by the PV&T or LT&L, but, particularly from the late 1930s on, most of the steam engines were owned directly by the TdM.

Number(s) Class Type Acquired Disposition
1 e44 B-B steeplecab 1913 retired 1920, sold to the (Montréal) Harbour Commission 1933
2-3 e44 B-B steeplecab 1913 retired 1920, sold to Quebec Railway Light and Power 1932
4 e44 B-B steeplecab 1913 retired 1920, sold to brokers 1935
11-13 s6 0-6-0 1910 retired 1952
14 s6 0-6-0 1910 retired 1962
15-19 s6 0-6-0 1911 retired 1947
20(first) s6 0-6-0 1915 retired 1938
21-24 s4 0-4-0 1915 retired 1947
24 s4 0-4-0 1915 retired 1939
31-33 s8t 0-8-0t 1917 retired 1962
101-110 33 2-8-2 1938 renumbered to 354-359 … and then retired 1962
111-117 33 2-8-2 1938 retired 1946, replaced by d44b’s 1101-1106
1001-1002 d44 Baldwin VO-660 1944 sold to PH&W 1955
1011-1013 d44a Alco RS-1 1941 traded to LT&L 1950 in exchange for 2-8-2s 111-117
1101-1102 d44b Alco RS-2 1946 retired 1966
1103 d44b Alco RS-2 1946 to RS-2m #371 1966
1104 d44b Alco RS-2 1946 to RS-251 #375 1966
1105-1106 d44b Alco RS-2 1946 retired 1966
201 101 2-10-0 1946 from PV&T 101, retired 1955
202 101 2-10-0 1946 from PV&T 102, retired 1958
203 101 2-10-0 1946 from PV&T 103, retired 1962
20(second) Ω 4-6-0+0-6-4 1958 stored 1962, to historical fleet 1998
  • Copyright © 2023 by David Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us) unless otherwise noted
    Sun Nov 13 13:33:37 PST 2022