Snowdon Station
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Snowdon station is a
Montreal Metro The Montreal Metro (, ) is a rubber-tired underground rapid transit system serving Greater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The metro, operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), was inaugurated on October 14, 1966, during the tenure ...
station in the borough of
Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (, ) is a Montreal borough, borough (''arrondissement'') of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The borough was created following the 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, 2002 municipal reorganization of M ...
in
Montreal Montreal is the List of towns in Quebec, largest city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Quebec, the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-largest in Canada, and the List of North American cit ...
,
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, ...
, Canada. It is operated by the
Société de transport de Montréal The Société de transport de Montréal (, STM; ) is a public transport agency that operates transit bus and rapid transit services in the urban agglomeration of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Established in 1861 as the "Montreal City Passenger Railwa ...
(STM) and is a transfer station between the Orange Line and Blue Line; it is the western terminus of the Blue Line. It is located in the
Snowdon Snowdon (), or (), is a mountain in Snowdonia in North Wales. It has an elevation of above sea level, which makes it both the highest mountain in Wales and the highest in the British Isles south of the Scottish Highlands. Snowdon i ...
neighbourhood A neighbourhood (Commonwealth English) or neighborhood (American English) is a geographically localized community within a larger town, city, suburb or rural area, sometimes consisting of a single street and the buildings lining it. Neighbourh ...
. The town of
Hampstead Hampstead () is an area in London, England, which lies northwest of Charing Cross, located mainly in the London Borough of Camden, with a small part in the London Borough of Barnet. It borders Highgate and Golders Green to the north, Belsiz ...
is located nearby to the west, across Macdonald Avenue; one emergency exit from the station extends into Hampstead. The station opened on September 7, 1981 with service on the Orange Line only, though the Blue Line platforms were built at the same time. At the time it was the western terminus of the Orange Line, taking over from Place-Saint-Henri station; it is thus the only station to have been the terminus of two different lines. Service on the Blue Line began on January 4, 1988.


Overview

The station was constructed as an anti-directional
cross-platform interchange A cross-platform interchange is a type of Interchange station, interchange between different lines at a metro (or other railway) station. The term originates with the London Underground; such layouts exist in other networks but are not commonly ...
, with three lateral tunnels containing two storeys each, joined by four cross-tunnels; both lines therefore have stacked platforms. This layout was intended to allow rapid transfer between a future extension into Notre-Dame-de-Grâce and service to downtown; this service never opened, and the station's layout means that most people who transfer between the Blue and Orange Lines must go down stairs. The station's central access tunnel is connected at its western end to the station's single entrance, which is integrated into an STM control centre and contains a small sunken garden.


Accessibility

In October 2013, work began to make the station accessible. Construction involved building two elevators to connect both platform levels of the station, with a third elevator constructed to connect the upper platform level with the surface entrance. The only vestibule of the station underwent reconstruction. After completion, the surface elevator features its longest shaft in Montreal Metro, with the pit depth of about 25 meters. Works was completed by June 2016. However, the Blue Line itself was not accessible until Jean-Talon station (which also interchanges with the Orange Line) gained elevators in 2019.


Architecture and art

The station was designed by Jean-Louis Beaulieu, who also provided sculptural grilles for the station's main staircase and the rear of the control building. The station's main artwork, a group of four murals by Claude Guité running the full length of the platform and entitled ''Les quatre saisons'' (the four seasons). The murals are painted on 500 panels of asbestos cement stretching the entire length of the platforms, they portray semi-abstract scenes of the foliage and weather associated with each of the four seasons. The seasons go in order, counterclockwise around the platforms, with
winter Winter is the coldest and darkest season of the year in temperate and polar climates. It occurs after autumn and before spring. The tilt of Earth's axis causes seasons; winter occurs when a hemisphere is oriented away from the Sun. Dif ...
on the Côte-Vertu platform, spring on Montmorency,
summer Summer or summertime is the hottest and brightest of the four temperate seasons, occurring after spring and before autumn. At or centred on the summer solstice, daylight hours are the longest and darkness hours are the shortest, with day ...
on the Saint-Michel departure platform, and
autumn Autumn, also known as fall (especially in US & Canada), is one of the four temperate seasons on Earth. Outside the tropics, autumn marks the transition from summer to winter, in September (Northern Hemisphere) or March ( Southern Hemisphe ...
on the Snowdon arrival platform. Soon after the station opened the murals were victims of
graffiti Graffiti (singular ''graffiti'', or ''graffito'' only in graffiti archeology) is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elabor ...
that badly damaged the artwork. Attempts of removing the graffiti destroyed large sections of the paintings. In 2004 the murals were all removed for a restoration plan by the STM to have the artist repaint the murals and slowly have them reinstalled in the station. As of June 2010 all the murals have been repainted, and are partially reinstalled on all four platforms of the station with a protective sheet of glass to prevent any future vandalism.


Origin of the name

This station is named for the neighborhood in which it is located, named in turn for the owner of a farm on which it was built. The underground station platforms, located under Avenue Dornal, are approximately four blocks—about 250 m (270 yards)—east of the site of Snowdon Junction, a major transfer point during the
streetcar A tram (also known as a streetcar or trolley in Canada and the United States) is an urban rail transit in which vehicles, whether individual railcars or multiple-unit trains, run on tramway tracks on urban public streets; some include s ...
era.


Connecting bus routes


Nearby points of interest

* Décarie Autoroute *
Saint Joseph's Oratory Saint Joseph's Oratory of Mount Royal ( French: ''Oratoire Saint-Joseph-du-Mont-Royal'') is a Roman Catholic minor basilica and national shrine located at 3800 Queen Mary Road in the Côte-des-Neiges neighborhood on Mount Royal's Westmount S ...
*
Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce (, ) is a Montreal borough, borough (''arrondissement'') of Montreal, Quebec, Canada. The borough was created following the 2000–2006 municipal reorganization in Quebec, 2002 municipal reorganization of M ...
borough hall * Notre-Dame-de-Grâce Library * Collège International Marie-de-France * University of Montreal Geriatrics Institute *
Segal Centre for Performing Arts The Segal Centre for Performing Arts, formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre for the Arts, is a theatre in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is located at 5170 Côte-Sainte-Catherine Road, chemin de la Côte-Sainte-Catherine, in the borough of Côte-des ...
(formerly the Saidye Bronfman Centre)


References


External links


Snowdon Station - official web page

Snowdon metro station geo location

Montreal by Metro, metrodemontreal.com

2011 STM System Map


{{Montreal Metro navbox Accessible Montreal Metro stations Orange Line (Montreal Metro) Blue Line (Montreal Metro) Railway stations in Canada opened in 1981 Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce 1981 establishments in Quebec