The Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway is a private

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

regional railway In the United States, a regional railroad is a railroad company that is not Class I, but still has a substantial amount of traffic or trackage (and is thus not a short line). The Association of American Railroads (AAR) has defined the lower bound ...

that stretches through the wilderness of northeastern

Quebec Quebec ( ; )According to the Canadian government, ''Québec'' (with the acute accent) is the official name in Canadian French and ''Quebec'' (without the accent) is the province's official name in Canadian English is one of the thirtee ...

and western

Labrador , nickname = "The Big Land" , etymology = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Canada , subdivision_type1 = Province , subdivision_name1 ...

. It connects

Labrador City Labrador City is a town in western Labrador (part of the Canadian province of Newfoundland and Labrador), near the Quebec border. With a population of 7,412 as of 2021, it is the second-largest population centre in Labrador, behind Happy Valley-Go ...

, Labrador, with the port of

Sept-Îles, Quebec Sept-Îles ( Quebec French pronunciation : , French for "Seven Islands") is a city in the Côte-Nord region of eastern Quebec. It is among the northernmost locales with a paved connection to the rest of Quebec's road network. The population was ...

, on the north shore of the

St. Lawrence River The St. Lawrence River (french: Fleuve Saint-Laurent, ) is a large river in the middle latitudes of North America. Its headwaters begin flowing from Lake Ontario in a (roughly) northeasterly direction, into the Gulf of St. Lawrence, connecting ...

. QNS&L is owned by

Iron Ore Company of Canada Iron Ore Company of Canada (often abbreviated to IOC) (french: Compagnie Minière IOC) is a Canadian-based producer of iron ore. The company was founded in 1949 from a partnership of Canadian and American M.A. Hanna Company. It is now owned by ...

(IOC), and is a common carrier.

History

When it was built between 1951 and 1954, the QNS&L connected the port of Sept-Îles on the north shore of the

with the northern terminus at IOC's mining community of

Schefferville, Quebec Schefferville is a town in the Canadian province of Quebec. Schefferville is in the heart of the Naskapi and Innu territory in northern Quebec, less than 2 km (1¼ miles) from the border with Labrador on the north shore of Knob Lake. I ...

, a distance of . In 1958, the Wabush ore body near Labrador City was opened by IOC and the Wabush Mining Company. QNS&L built a line to serve these mines, running west from the Sept-Îles-Schefferville main line at Emeril Junction, Labrador, to Carol Lake, Labrador, near

Wabush Wabush is a small town in the western tip of Labrador, bordering Quebec, known for transportation and iron ore operations. Economy Wabush is the twin community of Labrador City. At its peak population in the late 1970s, the region had a population ...

. Service on this branch began in 1960. At the same time, Wabush Mining Company built the relatively short Wabush Lake Railway from its mines at Labrador City to the QNS&L connection at Wabush. QNS&L hauls its own traffic from Carol Lake to IOC port facilities at Sept-Îles. QNSX also hauls Wabush Lake Railway traffic from the interchange at Wabush to Arnaud Jct., Quebec, near Sept-Îles, where it interchanges to the Arnaud Railway, which then completes the journey around Sept-Îles Harbour to Wabush Mining Co. port facilities at Pointe Noire, Quebec. In the 1980s, the Schefferville mining operations were closed in favour of iron ore deposits located further to the south near Wabush, and most residents relocated to Labrador City. QNS&L maintained subsidized passenger and freight service for local

First Nations First Nations or first peoples may refer to: * Indigenous peoples, for ethnic groups who are the earliest known inhabitants of an area. Indigenous groups *First Nations is commonly used to describe some Indigenous groups including: **First Natio ...

communities along this portion of its system, known as the Menihek Subdivision, until December 1, 2005, when it sold the Emeril Junction-Schefferville rail line to

Tshiuetin Rail Transportation Tshiuetin Rail Transportation Inc. is a rail company that owns and operates a Canadian regional railway In the United States, a regional railroad is a railroad company that is not Class I, but still has a substantial amount of traffic or track ...

(TSH) for the sum of $1 CAD. QNS&L still provides freight services, transporting employee automobiles, various bulk mine materials, large equipment, and everyday supplies for Labrador City and the various maintenance of way camps. This railway, along with the TSH line,

Chemin de fer Arnaud The Chemin de fer Arnaud, now Chemin de fer Arnaud Quebec (formerly ARND and CFA) (in English, the Arnaud Railway) is a private Canadian short line railway owned by Société ferroviaire et portuaire de Pointe-Noire (SFPPN) operating in the pr ...

(ARND), Wabush Lake Railway (WABL), and Bloom Lake Railway (BLRC), form an isolated railway network, as it does not interchange with any other rail lines on the North American network.

Incidents

Some time after 1997, the QNS&L was permitted by

Transport Canada Transport Canada (french: Transports Canada) is the department within the Government of Canada responsible for developing regulations, policies and services of road, rail, marine and air transportation in Canada. It is part of the Transporta ...

to employ only one engineer on its routes. In 2013 after the

Lac-Mégantic rail disaster The Lac-Mégantic rail disaster occurred in the town of Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, Canada, on July 6, 2013, at approximately 01:15 EDT, when an unattended 73-car Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA) freight train carrying Bakken Formation c ...

, Transport Canada issued 12 guideline regulations. Since August 20, 2013 the QNS&L has been the only remaining freight railway in Canada to use Single Person Train Operation (SPTO).The one other Single Person Train Operation freight carrier,

Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway was a Class II freight railroad that operated in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec between 2002 and 2014. It was headquartered in Hermon, Maine. Its Canadian subsid ...

, was shut down by Canadian authorities in 2013. On Thursday, November 6, 2014, a freight train consisting of three locomotives and 240 railcars derailed 20 km north of Sept-Îles, because of a landslide over the rail tracks. The locomotives and several railcars ended up in the

Moisie River The Moisie River is a river in eastern Quebec. Known as the Nahanni of the East, it is a wild river of North America. It has been proposed to protect the river with the Moisie River Aquatic Reserve. Course The Moisie River basin lies betwee ...

. The engineer of the locomotive died and was found by divers two days later.

More traffic

In 2010, Consolidated Thompson Iron Mines opened the Bloom Lake Mine, just west of Labrador City, Newfoundland. As part of this new operation,

Genesee & Wyoming Genesee & Wyoming Inc. (G&W) is an American short line railroad holding company, that owns or maintains an interest in 122 railroads in the United States, Canada, Belgium, Netherlands, Poland, United Kingdom and formerly Australia. It operates ...

was contracted to operate the Bloom Lake Railway to transport iron ore from the mine to a connection with the Wabush Lake Railway. The Wabush Lake Railway began acting as a middle man, taking the Bloom Lake Railway trains, and transporting them to Wabush Junction for the QNS&L to transport to the

just as they would Wabush trains. The Arnaud then takes the trains to the Consolidated Thompson's dock at Pointe-Noire, Quebec.

In popular culture

The construction of the QNSX forms the backdrop for English author

Hammond Innes Ralph Hammond Innes (15 July 1913 – 10 June 1998) was a British novelist who wrote over 30 novels, as well as works for children and travel books. Biography Innes was born in Horsham, Sussex, and educated at Feltonfleet School, Cobham, Surrey ...

' 1958 adventure novel about Labrador, ''The Land God gave to Cain''. Innes spent a period of time with the crews building the railway during his research. In the early 1970s, a country-Western band from Newfoundland called the Newfoundland Showband recorded a song about the railway, sung to the tune of "

Wabash Cannonball "The Great Rock Island Route", popularized as "Wabash Cannonball" and various other titles, is a 19th century American folk song that describes the scenic beauty and predicaments of a fictional train, the ''Wabash Cannonball Express'', as it tra ...

Locomotive roster

QNSL rosters seven types of locomotives. Most of these engines have been rebuilt at some point in their lives. QNS&L uses the SD40-3s mainly on mixed freight and work trains. The newer C44-9Ws, AC4400CWs, and SD70ACes handle the unit iron ore trains.

Notes

References

External links

QNS&L official website

Map of the QNS&L and Tshiuetin Rail Transportation lines
PDF file
Fact Sheet detailing the transaction
PDF file
Rail Lines of Northern Québec

Rail Lines of Labrador

"The Iron Road To Labrador."
''Popular Mechanics'', February 1954, pp. 118–124. *http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/modelListRR.aspx?id=QNSL {{Canadianmetros Newfoundland and Labrador railways Quebec railways Transport in Sept-Îles, Quebec Companies based in Quebec