User:Wolfy13399/Quebec and Lake St. John Railway

The Quebec and Lake St-John Railway is a railway in Canada which connects Quebec City to Roberval on Lac Saint-Jean. The Quebec and Lac St-Jean Railway was the first to be built on the north shore of the St. Lawrence River, in 1869. The railway, long, reached Roberval in 1888 to allow the colonization of the region; which encouraged the creation of numerous hunting and fishing clubs all along the route dotted with lakes in an entirely forested region. In 1918, the railway was integrated into the Canadian National Railway.

Quebec and Gosford Railway
In 1869, the Quebec and Gosford Railway (QGR) company, whose president was Henri-Gustave Joly, built a 41-km wooden haul road linking Saint-Malo (near Rue Taillon), a suburb of Quebec City, to Lac à l'Isle , in Gosford Township (Portneuf County), via Loretteville (the lake is located north of Saint-Joseph Lake, at the end of today's Gosford Road and Lumber Road). Construction cost, of which was assumed by the Quebec provincial government. The main purpose of the road was to supply Quebec City with firewood and hemlock bark, a source of tannin for the leather industry.

The maple rails measure 14' long by 7" high by 4" wide (4.27 m x 177.8 mm x 101.6 mm); they are fastened by two end-to-end wedges in notches cut in large 12' long sleepers spaced 15" apart (3.66 m/ 381 mm); the distance between rails is 4 ft. 8½ in. (1435 mm) . At Shannon, the Jacques-Cartier River is 61 m wide, and the QGR has to build a 19.1-ton capacity wooden bridge, 22 m high and extended by a trestle structure spanning 381 m on the north side of the river (the wooden bridge was located some 40 m east of the present 1879 bridge, in order to use a rocky islet to build a central pillar). The bridge was inaugurated on November 26, 1870. On December 24, 1870, the name of the QGR was changed to the Quebec and Lake St-John Railway (QLSJR) . At Loretteville, the grade is 47 m per km. But the wooden track could not withstand rain or winter, the price of firewood was uncompetitive and the line did not provide access to the downtown port of Quebec. The company ceased operations in 1874.

Quebec and Lake St-John Railway (QLSJR)
In 1874, the QLSJR was reorganized by a group of businessmen including James Guthrie Scott and Horace Jansen Beemer, an American entrepreneur involved in numerous rail projects in Canada; in 1875, the group obtained government authorization to extend the line to Lake St-John.

The route is studied at length by the Quebec government. In the winter of 1870, surveyor Eugène Casgrain located a route to extend the Quebec-Gosford line from the Jacques-Cartier River to the Ste-Anne River (St-Raymond), to join the Metabetchouan River valley north of the Laurentian mountain range, leading to Lac St-Jean; in 1873, surveyor John Sullivan confirmed the route. Relying on people familiar with the Laurentians, the Honorable J. C. Langelier suggested exploring a more westerly route, along the Batiscan River, with less elevation and crossing fertile lands including those of St-Raymond and Lac Édouard, as well as forests with timber suitable for export. In 1874, a report by surveyor P. H. Dumais confirmed Langelier's information and proposed the route that would be adopted, albeit 20 miles longer, via St-Raymond, Rivière-à-Pierre, the Batiscan River, Lake Édouard and the Ouiatchouan River. The report already mentions the possibility of easily joining the St-Maurice River at La Tuque via the La Jeannotte River.

The QGR route from Saint-Malo to Loretteville was replaced by that from Hedleyville (Vieux-Limoilou) to Loretteville via the gentler slope throughCharlesbourg to serve this important village. In 1879, the Shannon railway bridge was rebuilt west of the 1869 wooden bridge (in line with today's Gosford Road, thus smoothing out the 3 curves visible on the original plan above), and the QGR route, north of the Jacques-Cartier River, was diverted westwards: Duchesnay (south of Saint-Joseph Lake), Lac Sergent, Bourg-Louis and Saint-Raymond. Construction of the railroad began in 1880. In 1890, the QLSJR finally received the promised government subsidies and built the track section (12 miles/19.35 km) between Loretteville, Charlesbourg and Limoilou, as well as a swing bridge over the Saint-Charles River in Quebec City to connect directly with the first Palais station ). The swing bridge will take on the popular name of Pont Sainte-Anne (the Quebec Montmorency & Charlevoix Railway , QMCR, built in 1889, links the Hedleyville station to Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré, famous for its basilica and pilgrimages; the station is located just north of the Saint-Charles River, where the QLSJR tracks meet to the north and the QMCR to the east).

In 1891, the QLSJR built a three-story masonry station on rue Saint-André in the Port of Québec, along with a workshop, marshalling yard and roundhouse. The route via St. Malo is permanently replaced by the new route via Hedleyville and Charlesbourg (its St. Malo properties are transferred to the National Transcontinental Railway). In 1894, the QMCR also built a station on nearby Saint-Paul Street. In 1892, a subdivision was built between Chambor and Chicoutimi (75 miles/121 km ). In 1895, the QLSJR acquired the section of the Lower Laurentian Railway (Basses Laurentides), built in 1887 between the Les Piles line (linked to Trois-Rivières on the Canadian Pacific Railway, formerly the QMO&O) and Ste-Thècle; it became part of the Great Northern Railway of Canada in 1900. The Rivière-à-Pierre to Grand-Mère subdivision appears on the route of the 1898 brochure, whereas the previous destination was La Tuque (a subdivision not built until 1907, starting at Linton). In 1901, the QLSJR built a new 63.6-ton bridge at Shannon, 1km west of the 1879 bridge, to eliminate the long detour (a bridge that still exists in 2019).