The Orford Express was a

tourist train A heritage railway or heritage railroad (U.S. usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) ...

between Magog and

Sherbrooke, Quebec Sherbrooke ( , ) is a city in southern Quebec, Canada. It is at the confluence of the Saint-François and Magog rivers in the heart of the Estrie administrative region. Sherbrooke is also the name of a territory equivalent to a regional count ...

, operating seasonally on the former

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 subs ...

line through

Quebec Quebec is Canada's List of Canadian provinces and territories by area, largest province by area. Located in Central Canada, the province shares borders with the provinces of Ontario to the west, Newfoundland and Labrador to the northeast, ...

Eastern Townships The Eastern Townships (, ) is a historical administrative region in southeastern Quebec, Canada. It lies between the Great Lakes–St. Lawrence Lowlands, St. Lawrence Lowlands and the American border, and extends from Granby, Quebec, Granby in ...

. A

dinner train A dinner train is a relatively new type of tourist train service whose main purpose is to allow people to eat dinner while experiencing a relatively short, leisurely round trip train ride. This contrasts with conventional passenger trains, whose ...

which operated from early May to end-December, it was owned and operated separately from the underlying tracks.

History

The rail line through Farnham, Sherbrooke and Lac-Mégantic originally continued as the

International Railway of Maine The International Railway of Maine was a historic railroad constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and Mattawamkeag, Maine, closing a key gap in the railway's transcontinental main line to the port of Sai ...

, part of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City, Canadian Pacific Ka ...

system, through Brownville Junction, Maine, to

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John () is a port#seaport, seaport city located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. It is Canada's oldest Municipal corporation, incorporated city, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign ...

. Built in the 1880s, the CPR abandoned this line to the first in a series of short-line operators in 1994. Subsequent owners of the underlying line include

Iron Road Railways Iron Road Railways Incorporated (IRR) was a railroad holding company which owned several short line railroads in the U.S. state of Maine, as well as the Canadian provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. IRR was formed in 1994 and headq ...

(bankrupt 2002),

(bankrupt 2013), the

Central Maine and Quebec Railway The Central Maine and Québec Railway was a Class II railroad, Class II freight railroad operating in the United States, U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec with headquarters in Bangor, Maine. It was own ...

, and now finally back to Canadian Pacific..

VIA Rail Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via (stylized as VIA Rail), is a Canadian Crown corporation that operates intercity passenger rail service in Canada. As of December 2023, Via Rail operates 406 trains per week across eight ...

formerly provided ''

Atlantic The Atlantic Ocean is the second largest of the world's five oceanic divisions, with an area of about . It covers approximately 17% of Earth's surface and about 24% of its water surface area. During the Age of Discovery, it was known for se ...

'' passenger train service on this line, but abandoned the route when the tracks were sold in 1994. A long history of

deferred maintenance Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property (i.e. infrastructure) and personal property (i.e. machinery) in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available bu ...

under various short-line operators caused the tracks to deteriorate, necessitating speed reductions on much of the line. The Orford Express, launched in 2006,Text of CTA Decision 561-r-2005
/ref> covered one small portion of the route (Eastman to Magog and Sherbrooke) seasonally, at low speed using its own trains (owned and insured separately from the underlying freight short lines) with tourist panorama cars. The train ran from May to December, with special runs during the holiday season between Christmas and New Year's Eve. There were two dining cars and seating for 140 passengers. On October 8, 2020, the owners, PAL+, announced that they had made the decision to cease operations of the Orford Express tourist train. The train had been inactive for the previous few months due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic and COVID pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an disease outbreak, outbreak of COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, in December ...

Operational setbacks

On July 6, 2013, an unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars and the confirmed death of forty-two people and five more missing and presumed dead. On October 11, 2013, Transport Canada imposed an

embargo Economic sanctions or embargoes are commercial and financial penalties applied by states or institutions against states, groups, or individuals. Economic sanctions are a form of coercion that attempts to get an actor to change its behavior throu ...

on the line between Lennoxville and Lac-Mégantic due to poor track conditions, necessitating cancellation of a planned special train to

Lac-Mégantic, Quebec Lac-Mégantic () is a town in the Estrie region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on Lac Mégantic, a freshwater lake after which the town was named. Situated in the former Frontenac County in the historic Eastern Townships, Lac-Mégantic is the ...

, which was to have run from

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in October and November in the United States, Canada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Germany. It is also observed in the Australian territory ...

Halloween Halloween, or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve), is a celebration geography of Halloween, observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christianity, Western Christian f ...

. On April 25, 2014, the service was cancelled for the season due to accidental fire damage to one of the panorama cars. The season was to have started May 7. Regular operation of the tourist train resumed in 2016. On October 8, 2020, it was announced that operations would permanently cease. The train had not operated for a number of months before that due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

External links

* {{Canada heritage railways Dinner trains Heritage railways in Quebec 2006 establishments in Quebec

History

Operational setbacks

See also

References

External links