Path of secret metro tunnel, according to declassified STM archives
Two months ago, a group of local underground sewer explorers stumbled onto an interesting find: a large tunnel that seemed to go on forever but didn’t have any obvious purpose. After some investigation and searching through archives of the government and the local transit authority, a clearer picture is finally starting to emerge: that tunnel was part of a secret metro extension from Snowdon to the West Island that has been hidden from the public for mostly political reasons.
The tunnel’s history is actually quite extensive, and predates the metro itself. Most of it used to be two small rivers that connected to Lake St. Louis. The rivers were replaced by larger than normal sewers some time before 1890. Around WWII, most of those sewers were turned into trench roadways and tunnels to be used for transportation, but without proper ventilation the long stretches of tunnel would quickly accumulate carbon monoxide. After a truck driver died in the tunnel somewhere under Lachine from asphyxiation, and another worker died in a cave-in, the tunnel was permanently sealed off.
It’s not clear what happened over the ensuing decades, but the tunnel was to be used as part of a planned metro extension of the blue line from Snowdon to the West Island. The only problem was, nobody could find the tunnel.
It was incredibly embarrassing for the government, but all records relating to the long tunnel were lost in a fire in 1951. All the known access points had been built over, and no one could come up with a way to get access to the tunnel, much less bring in equipment safely to build a metro system inside.
During the 1970s workers discovered an access point near the Decarie trench at Queen Mary, just west of what would become the Snowdon metro station. (In fact, Snowdon was built in part through this access, saving the government millions of dollars in construction costs.) Weeks were spent exploring the tunnels and redrawing their maps. Retrofitting the largest and longest tunnel to accommodate a metro system wouldn’t have been cheap, they discovered, but would certainly have cost less than starting from scratch, and probably less than a bus system. It also had the advantage of passing close to the airport terminal.
That’s where politics comes in. The 70s were a rather volatile time in Quebec, especially with the 1976 election of the Parti Québécois. According to recently released documents, the PQ minister of transport did his best to stop the plan in its tracks. The tunnel’s route takes it through Hampstead, Montreal West, Dorval and Pointe-Claire. It couldn’t be more anglo-friendly if it tried. And party hardliners would blow a gasket over the idea of spending millions of dollars providing high-speed transit for anglo suburbanites, especially before much-needed service to St. Leonard, St. Laurent and Verdun (not to mention the Université de Montréal).
Citing vaguely-described security concerns, the minister of transport classified all records relating to this tunnel for 30 years in 1978. The government had actually forgotten about it until a large part of the tunnel was recently rediscovered through an abandoned sewer. Inquiries to the province about it prompted the full release of the file (or at least, what’s left of it). It should be up on the government’s website soon, and I’ll link to it when it is.
Additional searching through the STM’s archives as well as what’s left of the city’s gives us a clearer picture of what the tunnel looks like. But nobody is sure if that’s even all of it. There may be other tunnels that have been sealed off for decades and nobody knows where they are.
For now, based on information provided to me through paper files I have, I’ve constructed a map of what the tunnel we do know about looks like. Much of it is in a state of advanced decay, and some sections aren’t connected with each other, but you get an idea of roughly where the tunnel goes.
Though the truth is out now, and the government is more open to suburban metro extensions, the tunnels are even less suitable for metro construction than they were 40 years ago. A back-of-the-envelope estimate by one engineer put the cost at over $9 billion, or about 10 times what it cost to extend the metro to Laval. In fact, some tunnels would have to be destroyed first, meaning the work would have to start from scratch.
That’s a shame. It could have been so easy.
UPDATE: I just noticed this post at Spacing Montreal which describes an underground sewer which runs through Lachine and the southwest that’s large enough for a metro car to travel through. I’ll just pretend like it was all part of my master plan.
great post, fascinating bit of Montreal history. Thanks.
From what I know, it only keeps going for about 1km West, but the extention and sewer thing seems to be more like a bad joke to me. I’d like it to be real, though!
You’re a busy guy.
Another good one.
This is a neat find. Considering the talk of the metro extension to Trudeau airport that was going on a while back, this might be worth while. I know the other plan was calling for a coalition of businesses and government to build it, but we know what a dog’s breakfast that would turn into.
I wonder what the cost of building a fresh tunnel to Dorval would be compared to retrofitting this one?
Are you sure this tunnel is not part of the WUSS (the World Units in Sub Surface).
Watch out if it is… people have died because of such discovery, like Emir Kusturica that, after the screening of his movie “underground”, disappeared for several week and was later found screaming down the streets of a small village in south america, with infected stitches all around his head, as if part of his brain has been removed.
What do you they call that? Un poisson d’avril?
This HAS to be an april fools joke!
Bob,
I hope you understand that that was an April Fool’s Day joke.
:)
I really need to learn not believe anything on April 1st!
Geez Fagstein, you had me going with all the neat news today, and then something hit me… It’s all too wierd, and the posts are coming too fast. April Fool’s it is!!
frig, is it really April1? Damn you, Fagstein, for posting things before I get my morning coffee. Of course, from now on I’ll never believe anything I read on the web…
Wasn’t there a post on Spacing Montreal about this, though? Something related maybe?
A very strange coincidence.
I wish I had thought of this, but as you pointed out, I put all my creative energy into writing about tunnels that actually exist!
The 1976 edition of “The Montreal Metro” (hardcover, Montreal Library) shows the proposed “future extensions” of the Metro Blue Line all the way east to an “Amos” station” in Montreal North and west from Snowdon to stations named “Cote St. Luc”, “Cavendish”, “Montreal West”, and “Lafleur”.
Although the map showing the precise locations is vague, what can be determined is that a Metro station would most likely be built in or near the small park at the corner of Girouard and Cote St. Luc, another one at the southwest corner of Benny Park at the corner of Cavendish and Monkland, another just east of the existing Elmhurst bus depot (where an empty lot already belongs to the city), and the final station being somewhere vaguely in the vicinity of Lafleur and Elmslie (perhaps a station in LaSalle park would be more logical!).
In any event, all later editions of this book no longer show these extensions, with the latest proposals post 2010 being the eastward extension from the St. Michel Metro to the Galeries d’Anjou district.
Politics has definitely played a part in the constant delays in running the Metro west of Snowdon. There was also talk of extending a line to Dorval Airport (shades of Heathrow?) but, of course, nothing ever came of that–as does the ongoing endless debate about running a direct rail link to the airport, ad nauseum.
The worst irony of all is that city counselor Marvin Rotrand, himself a west end resident and responsible for municipal transport issues, constantly plays down any hope of such west end Metro extensions. Go figure!
Just whose side is he on, anyway?! “Ugly Anglos”, eh? Look in the mirror, Marvin!
Nice post. Could you send links to the documents you’re citing?
Who said the metro has to be underground? We already have 4 train tracks that link Downtown Montreal and the west island. they are fully functional with all the required infrastructures: train traffic control, crossing protections , stations, parking, etc… These tracks are grossly underutilized, all what it takes is some goodwill from politicians to negotiate with the railway a deal to expand the utilization or this nearly abandoned facilities. There will be a small engineering challenge to resolve the compatibility of diesel trains and the electrical metro cars, and as the saying say: (If you want, you can).
The Montreal-Deux Montagnes train line is used to its maximum during rush hour by the AMT, and has trains at least every hour otherwise on weekdays. The Montreal-Vaudreuil line is also used heavily during rush hour, but sparely otherwise because CP uses the tracks for freight. They are hardly “nearly abandoned”.
If you’re talking about using metro cars on outdoor train lines, forget it. Metro cars were never designed to go outside, and are not compatible with regular railway.
I forgot to mention that I don’t believe the PQ had any think to do with blocking such project, because Montreal already have an alternative solution that would be much much less expensive to implement.
About 1965, 5 of us found a new 8’ flood /sewer pipe that they were installing what would be a Industrial area now I think. It was beside the Summerlea Golf Club on the West side North of the tracks @about 45th ave.we had Bikes And Made torches with sticks and Rags,and
Construction site had plenty of Diesel to dip them in. We got back 30 yards in the new pipe and hit the Old F/S system.We would go as far as our torches would last then light our return tourches.We encountered some pretty cool iceicle like mineral formations.the System was built of Brick,was about 12’ across a trench in the middle about 4’across and the two sides 4’ acomidated our bikes nicely.
We never lifted manhole covers but one of the guys had a mileage meter on his tire ,we were getting back a couple miles that would have taken us across the Metroplitain(2&20 at the time) well into Lachine.
If you still live there and Find access grab your friends and Bikes
And nesacery equipment and go ??