![Greenville Jct ME station - CPR](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b7/Greenville_Jct_ME_station_-_CPR.jpg)
The International Railway of Maine was a historic railroad constructed by the
Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between
Lac-Mégantic,
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
Mattawamkeag,
Maine
Maine () is a state in the New England and Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Canadian provinces of New Brunswick and Quebec to the northeast and ...
, closing a key gap in the railway's transcontinental main line to the port of
Saint John,
New Brunswick
New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. It is the only province with both English and ...
.
Winter alternative to Montreal
The CPR completed its route from
Montreal
Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the second-most populous city in Canada and most populous city in the Canadian province of Quebec. Founded in 1642 as '' Ville-Marie'', or "City of Mary", it is named after Mount Royal, the triple ...
, Quebec, to
Vancouver
Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the ...
,
British Columbia
British Columbia (commonly abbreviated as BC) is the westernmost province of Canada, situated between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains. It has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that include rocky coastlines, sandy beaches, ...
, in 1885. In the decades prior to the use of
ice breaking ships in the
Gulf of St. Lawrence and
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 ...
, the port of Montreal was closed from December to May, limiting any advantage that the railway might have over its competitors.
CPR's primary Canadian competitor, the
Grand Trunk Railway
The Grand Trunk Railway (; french: Grand Tronc) was a railway system that operated in the Canadian provinces of Quebec and Ontario and in the American states of Connecticut, Maine, Michigan, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, and Vermont. The rail ...
(GTR), managed to avoid the winter ice problems in Montreal by using the ice-free port of
Portland
Portland most commonly refers to:
* Portland, Oregon, the largest city in the state of Oregon, in the Pacific Northwest region of the United States
* Portland, Maine, the largest city in the state of Maine, in the New England region of the northeas ...
, Maine, accessed by a route constructed by the
St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad
The St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad , known as St-Laurent et Atlantique Quebec in Canada, is a short-line railway operating between Portland, Maine, on the Atlantic Ocean, and Montreal, Quebec, on the St. Lawrence River. It crosses the C ...
which the GTR had purchased in the mid-1850s.
The
Delaware and Hudson Railway ran a feeder route down the valleys of
Lake Champlain
Lake Champlain ( ; french: Lac Champlain) is a natural freshwater lake in North America. It mostly lies between the US states of New York and Vermont, but also extends north into the Canada, Canadian province of Quebec.
The New York portion of t ...
and the
Hudson River
The Hudson River is a river that flows from north to south primarily through eastern New York. It originates in the Adirondack Mountains of Upstate New York and flows southward through the Hudson Valley to the New York Harbor between N ...
to
New York City
New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the most densely populated major city in the Un ...
. The
Maine Central Railroad
The Maine Central Railroad Company was a U. S. Class I railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. By 1884, Maine Central was the longest railroad in New England. Maine Central had expanded to ...
operated an arduous route over the
White Mountains from
St. Johnsbury,
Vermont
Vermont () is a state in the northeast New England region of the United States. Vermont is bordered by the states of Massachusetts to the south, New Hampshire to the east, and New York to the west, and the Canadian province of Quebec to ...
, to Portland.
Looking 350 miles directly east from Montreal however, CPR surveyors saw the Canadian port of Saint John, New Brunswick, was underutilized and Saint John was accessible by a route across northern Maine which was less mountainous than other options for reaching the Atlantic coast.
Existing railways
Some sections of a direct railway route between Montreal and Saint John already existed in the 1880s:
* The International Railway began operating in 1875 between
Sherbrooke
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 cou ...
and
Megantic in
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 ...
to service the forest industry. As suggested by the name of the company, its builders envisioned extending further east into Maine. This company was the successor to an original charter granted to the St Francis and Megantic International Railway.
* The
European and North American Railway
The European and North American Railway (E&NA) is the name for three historic Canadian and American railways which were built in New Brunswick and Maine.
The idea of the E&NA as a single system was conceived at a railway conference in Portland, M ...
was constructed as part of a plan to link the
Maritime provinces
The Maritimes, also called the Maritime provinces, is a region of Eastern Canada consisting of three provinces: New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island. The Maritimes had a population of 1,899,324 in 2021, which makes up 5.1% of Ca ...
with the North American rail network at Portland. Organized as separate companies, the E&NA had built a section from
Shediac, New Brunswick
Shediac (official in both languages; ''Shédiac'' is colloquial French) is a heavily Acadian town in Westmorland County, New Brunswick. The town is home to the famous Parlee Beach and is known as the "Lobster Capital of the World". It hosts ...
, west to Saint John in the late 1850s but had gone bankrupt and the colonial government had assumed its operation. The E&NA built a western extension from Saint John to the
International Boundary
Borders are usually defined as geographical boundaries, imposed either by features such as oceans and terrain, or by political entities such as governments, sovereign states, federated states, and other subnational entities. Political borders ca ...
at
St. Croix
Saint Croix; nl, Sint-Kruis; french: link=no, Sainte-Croix; Danish and no, Sankt Croix, Taino: ''Ay Ay'' ( ) is an island in the Caribbean Sea, and a county and constituent district of the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), an unincor ...
, New Brunswick, and
Vanceboro, Maine, during the 1860s, while the E&NA in Maine had built from
Bangor up the
Penobscot River valley to the hamlet of
Mattawamkeag at the confluence with the
Mattawamkeag River
The Mattawamkeag River is a river in Maine. From the confluence of its East Branch and West Branch () in Haynesville, about west of the Canada–United States border, the river runs U.S. Geological Survey. National Hydrography Dataset high-r ...
before turning east across the lowlands of eastern Maine to the border at Vanceboro-St. Croix; this section having opened in 1869. Another bankruptcy at the E&NA saw the New Brunswick portion from Saint John to the border purchased by the
New Brunswick Railway
The New Brunswick Railway Company Limited (NBR) is currently a Canadian non-operating railway and land holding company headquartered in Saint John, New Brunswick that is part of "Irving Transportation Services", a division within the J.D. Irving ...
and the Maine portion from Bangor to the border leased by the Maine Central Railroad.
Building the International of Maine
A roughly 100 mile / 160 km gap between Mattawamkeag and Megantic required new construction to complete the Montreal-Saint John direct route.
The CPR acquired the International Railway in the mid-1880s and surveyed a line running directly from Megantic to a point on the E&NA (then leased by the Maine Central) at Mattawamkeag. This portion of new railway would cross the International Boundary between Megantic, Quebec and
Jackman, Maine
Jackman is a town in Somerset County, Maine, United States. The population was 782 at the 2020 census.
Geography
According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area of , of which is land and is water.
Climate
This climat ...
, thus the CPR organized two separate companies:
* The International Railway was incorporated federally in Canada for the portion between Megantic and the border. In 1886 it was sold to the
Atlantic and North-West Railway
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the "Old World" of Africa, Europe and ...
, a CPR subsidiary.
* The International Railway of Maine was incorporated in the state of Maine to cross the sparsely populated
Appalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains, often called the Appalachians, (french: Appalaches), are a system of mountains in eastern to northeastern North America. The Appalachians first formed roughly 480 million years ago during the Ordovician Period. They ...
between the Quebec-Maine border and Mattawamkeag and assumed the charter of a previous company of the same name that had been organized in 1871. It was also sold to the Atlantic and North-West in 1886.
A little known 374-meter (1227-foot) long steel trestle 38 meters (124 feet) above Ship Pond Stream near
Onawa was replaced by a viaduct in 1931. Until 6 July 1960, railway employees along this remote line were paid from the last
pay car
A pay car was an official railway car operated as a mobile bank to disburse cash wages to railway employees in locations including North America and Australia. Railway company employees were widely dispersed with some maintaining track in relative ...
operating in the United States or Canada.
[Lavallée, Omer (1984) ''CANADIAN PACIFIC in the East (Volume One)'' The Calgary Group of the British Railway Modellers of North America pp.7&8]
Construction under Chief Engineer
James Ross began in 1886–1887 and proceeded in both directions from various points on the route. The new line opened in June 1889 and CPR obtained trackage rights over the Maine Central from Mattawamkeag to Vanceboro, and purchased the New Brunswick Railway to acquire control of the route from Vanceboro to Saint John, as well as a branch line network in western New Brunswick and northern Maine.
Interchange points
The new CPR line across Maine to Saint John was the last link in creating a transcontinental railway, although the section from Mattawamkeag to Vanceboro was operated under trackage rights. In 1955, the Maine Central purchased the E&NA shares for approximately $3 million USD and in 1974, CPR purchased the Mattawamkeag-Vanceboro portion from the Maine Central, finally securing ownership and operation of its entire transcontinental network.
The CPR operated its new line across Maine as its International of Maine Division (
Canadian Pacific Lines in Maine) for many years; the International Railway of Maine existing on paper for operating purposes, however the track and all operations became seamless in the CPR system.
The
Quebec Central Railway
The Quebec Central Railway was a railway in the Canadian province of Quebec, that served the Eastern Townships region south of the St. Lawrence River. Its headquarters was in Sherbrooke. It was originally incorporated in 1869 as the Sherbrooke, ...
anticipated that the new CPR main line across Maine to its winter port of Saint John would result in traffic to
Quebec City
Quebec City ( or ; french: Ville de Québec), officially Québec (), is the capital city of the Canadian province of Quebec. As of July 2021, the city had a population of 549,459, and the metropolitan area had a population of 839,311. It is t ...
, thus the QCR built a line from the CPR at Megantic north to Tring Junction and thence on to Vallee Junction in the Beauce River valley.
The north-south oriented
Bangor and Aroostook Railroad created an interchange with CPR at
Brownville Junction, Maine
Brownville Junction is a census-designated place (CDP) in the town of Brownville, Piscataquis County, Maine, United States. It is west-central part of the town, on the west side of the Pleasant River, a south-flowing tributary of the Piscataquis ...
, and had an earlier interchange where Bangor and Aroostook predecessor Bangor and Piscataquis Railroad reached the south end of
Moosehead Lake
Moosehead Lake is a deep, coldwater lake located in Piscataquis County in Northwestern Maine. It is the second-largest lake in New England, and the largest mountain lake in the eastern United States. Situated in the mostly undeveloped Longfellow Mo ...
at
Greenville Junction. Bangor and Aroostook dismantled the Greenville branch in 1961.
In addition to interchanging with CPR at Vanceboro and Mattawamkeag, the Maine Central had an interchange with the CPR from 1906 to 1933 west of Greenville Junction where the
Kineo branch crossed at Somerset Junction en route to Kineo Station connections with steamboats serving the
Mount Kineo
Mount Kineo is a prominent geological feature located on a peninsula that extends from the easterly shore of Moosehead Lake in the northern forest of Maine. With cliffs rising straight up from the water, it is the central feature of Mount Kine ...
House.
Two
logging railroads also interchanged with the International of Maine Division. There was an interchange at Jackman with Jackman Lumber Company's Bald Mountain Railroad from 1915 to 1926, and with the Ray Lumber Company (later Indian Lake Lumber Company) railroad at Ray Siding near Caribou Stream in
Bowerbank Township from 1912 to 1929.
Ray Lumber Company Locomotives
Passenger and freight service
The new route was served by CPR's passenger rail service between
Windsor Station in Montreal and Union Station in Saint John, where passengers could continue on the
Intercolonial Railway
The Intercolonial Railway of Canada , also referred to as the Intercolonial Railway (ICR), was a historic Canadian railway that operated from 1872 to 1918, when it became part of Canadian National Railways. As the railway was also completely o ...
to
Moncton and Halifax.
Until the early 1960s, traffic on the International of Maine Division was extremely heavy and the railway was well-used.
The 201 mile section of railway across the state of Maine was operated directly by CPR from 1889 to 1988. The opening of the
St. Lawrence Seaway in 1958 and the provision of icebreaking services for the port of Montreal by the new
Canadian Coast Guard
The Canadian Coast Guard (CCG; french: links=no, Garde côtière canadienne, GCC) is the coast guard of Canada. Formed in 1962, the coast guard is tasked with marine search and rescue (SAR), communication, navigation, and transportation issues ...
after the 1960s saw the importance of a winter port at Saint John diminish.
World Wars
During
World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
, the CPR line became infamous for being the sabotage target of a German army officer. The United States was still a neutral country at that point and CPR was not permitted to transport war material and troops across US soil on the way to Saint John; most war goods for Canada's war effort were transported entirely in Canada on the government-owned Intercolonial Railway route instead. However Imperial Germany was convinced that CPR's route across Maine was being used for the war effort and sought to destroy the
Saint Croix-Vanceboro Railway Bridge over the
St. Croix River between
Vanceboro, Maine
Vanceboro is a town in Washington County, Maine, United States. The town was named after landowner William Vance. The main village in town is located at the eastern terminus of Maine State Route 6. Vanceboro is across the St. Croix River from ...
, and
St. Croix, New Brunswick. The officer travelled to Vanceboro on a Maine Central passenger train and stayed several nights in the local hotel, then laid explosives which detonated but did not destroy the bridge. He was arrested and then jailed by the United States before eventually being extradited and jailed in Canada.
A year after the armistice, 23 died in an
Onawa train wreck when a freight train collided head on with the third of four passenger trains carrying immigrants recently arrived on a liner from Europe. The crew of the 26-car freight train became confused about the number of trains required to carry all the passengers. All were operating as sections of a single regularly scheduled passenger train, but the last was 8 hours late.
[''Railroad Wrecks'' by Edgar A. Haine, page 148, publ 1993, ]
Traffic declines
In 1955, CPR created a limited stop express passenger train named ''
The Atlantic Limited
The ''Atlantic'' (french: L'Atlantique) was a passenger train operated by Via Rail, serving both Canadian and U.S. territory between Montreal, Quebec and Halifax, Nova Scotia. It was previously operated by Canadian Pacific Railway as ''The Atl ...
''. This daily train operated overnight from Montreal to Saint John and vice versa, with full service diner, observation and coach/sleeper cars.
Government investment in the 1970s for an intermodal container terminal and various improvements at Saint John resulted in some freight traffic increases and CPR invested in infrastructure improvements over the route, however by the 1980s, it was in severe decline as changes in shipping patterns and cargo logistics saw CPR make less and less return on the line.
In 1978,
Via Rail Canada
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...
took over operation of CPR passenger services and ''The Atlantic Limited'' was changed to become the ''
Atlantic
The Atlantic Ocean is the second-largest of the world's five oceans, with an area of about . It covers approximately 20% of Earth's surface and about 29% of its water surface area. It is known to separate the " Old World" of Africa, Europe an ...
'' and service was extended east from Saint John to Halifax. Passenger traffic increased but government cutbacks in 1981 saw the train discontinued, removing passenger service from the Montreal-Saint John route for the first time since the route opened in 1889. The ''Atlantic'' was restored in 1985 and remained in daily service until 1990 and then tri-weekly service thereafter.
In 1988, CPR organized all its lines east of Montreal into Maine and the Maritimes (including its
Dominion Atlantic Railway
The Dominion Atlantic Railway was a historic railway which operated in the western part of Nova Scotia in Canada, primarily through an agricultural district known as the Annapolis Valley.
The Dominion Atlantic Railway was unusually diverse for a ...
subsidiary in Nova Scotia) under a new subsidiary called the
Canadian Atlantic Railway
The Canadian Atlantic Railway (CAR) was a Canadian and U.S. railway that existed from 1988 to 1994.
The CAR was created in September 1988 as a business unit of CP Rail (CPR) to serve the Maritime Provinces and state of Maine. Its creation wa ...
(CAR). The CAR experiment was short-lived as its lines were still losing money, despite abandoning many of its small rural branch lines in western New Brunswick and northern Maine. CPR applied in 1993 to abandon the mainline from Montreal to Saint John but was refused by government regulators.
Abandonment and sale
In 1994 it applied again for abandonment and permission was granted for the end of that year. Shippers and communities along the route were upset and urged CPR to sell the line, which it finally did in sections on January 1, 1995. In advance of the pending abandonment and later sale of the line,
Via Rail
Via Rail Canada Inc. (), operating as Via Rail or Via, is a Canadian Crown corporation that is mandated to operate intercity passenger rail service in Canada. It receives an annual subsidy from Transport Canada to offset the cost of operating ...
discontinued passenger service with the ''Atlantic'' on December 17, 1994, and the line has not had dedicated passenger service since then.
The section from Saint John to the Maine-New Brunswick border was purchased by
New Brunswick Southern Railway
The New Brunswick Southern Railway Company Limited is a Canadian short line railway owned by the New Brunswick Railway Company Limited, a holding company that is part of "Irving Transportation Services", a division within the industrial conglo ...
, a subsidiary of
J.D. Irving Limited, an industrial conglomerate and major traffic source in Saint John. The section from the Maine-New Brunswick border west to Mattawamkeag (where it interchanges with
Guilford Rail System) and on to Brownville Junction (where it interchanges with Bangor and Aroostook Railroad) was also sold to a JDI subsidiary,
Eastern Maine Railway. West of Brownville to Montreal, the route was purchased by
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 ...
, the corporate owner of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.
The bankruptcy of Iron Road in the early 2000s saw the western part of the system taken over by the newly organized
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 ...
(which filed for
bankruptcy protection in August 2013), while JDI continues at the eastern end of the route.
Fortress Investment Group purchased the trackage owned by the Montreal Maine and Atlantic out of bankruptcy. This includes the portion of the International Railway of Maine from Brownville Junction to the west. Operations began in 2014 as the Central Maine and Quebec Railway.
As of June 4, 2020, Canadian Pacific has purchased the entire Central Maine and Quebec Railway and has begun the process of integrating the former CM&Q lines. This includes the former Bangor and Aroostook lines owned by the Central Maine and Quebec which had no prior ties to Canadian Pacific.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:International Railway Maine
Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiaries
Defunct Maine railroads
International railway lines
Maine logging railroads
Former Class I railroads in the United States
Predecessors of the Canadian Pacific Railway
Railway companies established in 1881
">Railway companies disestablished in 1886
Canadian companies established in 1881