The Montreal and Lachine Railroad opened on November 19, 1847, with service between

Bonaventure Station Bonaventure is a Montreal Metro station in the borough of Ville-Marie in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It is operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM) and serves the Orange Line. It opened on February 13, 1967, four months after m ...

Montreal Montreal ( ; officially Montréal, ) is the List of the largest municipalities in Canada by population, second-most populous city in Canada and List of towns in Quebec, most populous city in the Provinces and territories of Canada, Canadian ...

and the

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 ...

in Lachine. Built to bypass the

Lachine Rapids The Lachine Rapids (french: Rapides de Lachine) are a series of rapids on the Saint Lawrence River, between the Island of Montreal and the south shore. They are located near the former city of Lachine. The Lachine Rapids contain large standing ...

, it was 12 km long. The railway merged with the Lake St. Louis and Province Railroad in 1850 under the name Montreal and New York Railroad. In 1857, it merged with the

Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad The Champlain and St. Lawrence Railroad (C&SL) was a historic railway in Lower Canada, the first Canadian public railway and one of the first railways built in British North America. Origin The C&SL was financed by Montreal entrepreneur and br ...

as the Montreal and Champlain Railroad. It would eventually be absorbed by 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 rai ...

Tokens

The railway used

token coin In numismatics, token coins or trade tokens are coin-like objects used instead of coins. The field of token coins is part of exonumia and token coins are token money. Their denomination is shown or implied by size, color or shape. They are oft ...

s after it was found that

train ticket A train ticket is a ticket issued by a railway operator that enables the bearer to travel on the operator's network or a partner's network. Tickets can authorize the bearer to travel a set itinerary at a specific time (common for long-distance ...

s were not convenient for use among the Indians and workmen on the

Lachine Canal The Lachine Canal ( in French (language), French) is a canal passing through the southwestern part of the Island of Montreal, Quebec, Canada, running 14.5 kilometres (9 miles) from the Old Port of Montreal to Lake Saint-Louis, through the boroug ...

, who formed the bulk of company's third class travel. Imported from

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the West ...

, where they were made by Boulton & Watt or Ralph Heaton & Sons, the tokens were strung on a wire as they were collected by the conductor. The tokens were issued in 1847 and used until the early 1860s, with the image of a train locomotive on one side and a beaver on the other.

Tokens

References

Further reading