The Orford Express was a

tourist train ''Tourist Train'' (Italian: ''Treno popolare'') is a 1933 Italian comedy film directed by Raffaello Matarazzo and starring Marcello Spada, Lina Gennari and Carlo Petrangeli. The film portrays the comic adventures of a group of summertime travelle ...

between Magog and

Sherbrooke, Quebec 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 count ...

, operating seasonally on the former

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 ...

line through

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 ...

Eastern Townships The Eastern Townships (french: Cantons de l'Est) is an historical administrative region in southeastern Quebec, Canada. It lies between the St. Lawrence Lowlands and the American border, and extends from Granby in the southwest, to Drummondv ...

. A

dinner train A dinner train is a relatively new type of tourist train service whose main purpose is to allow people to eat dinner while experiencing a relatively short, leisurely round trip train ride. This contrasts with conventional passenger trains, whose ma ...

which operated from early May to end-December, it was owned and operated separately from the underlying tracks.

History

The rail line through Farnham, Sherbrooke and Lac-Mégantic originally continued as the

International Railway of Maine The International Railway of Maine was a historic railroad constructed by the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) between Lac-Mégantic, Quebec, and Mattawamkeag, Maine, closing a key gap in the railway's transcontinental main line to the port of Sa ...

, part of the

Canadian Pacific Railway The Canadian Pacific Railway (french: Chemin de fer Canadien Pacifique) , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadi ...

system, through

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 ...

, to

Saint John, New Brunswick Saint John is a seaport city of the Atlantic Ocean located on the Bay of Fundy in the province of New Brunswick, Canada. Saint John is the oldest incorporated city in Canada, established by royal charter on May 18, 1785, during the reign of Ki ...

. Built in the 1880s, the CPR abandoned this line to the first in a series of short-line operators in 1994. Subsequent owners of the underlying line include

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 ...

(bankrupt 2002),

(bankrupt 2013) and now the

Central Maine and Quebec Railway The Central Maine & Québec Railway was a Class II freight railroad operating in the U.S. states of Maine and Vermont and the Canadian province of Quebec with headquarters in Bangor, Maine. It was owned by Railroad Acquisition Holdings, LLC, ...

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 ...

formerly provided ''

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 ...

'' passenger train service on this line, but abandoned the route when the tracks were sold in 1994. A long history of

deferred maintenance Deferred maintenance is the practice of postponing maintenance activities such as repairs on both real property (i.e. infrastructure) and personal property (i.e. machinery) in order to save costs, meet budget funding levels, or realign available bud ...

under various short-line operators caused the tracks to deteriorate, necessitating speed reductions on much of the line. The Orford Express, launched in 2006,Text of CTA Decision 561-r-2005
/ref> covered one small portion of the route (Eastman to Magog and Sherbrooke) seasonally, at low speed using its own trains (owned and insured separately from the underlying freight short lines) with tourist panorama cars. The train ran from May to December, with special runs during the holiday season between Christmas and New Year's Eve. There were two dining cars and seating for 140 passengers. On October 8, 2020 the owners, PAL+, announced that they had made the decision to cease operations of the Orford Express tourist train. The train had been inactive for the previous few months due to the

COVID-19 pandemic The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is an ongoing global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). The novel virus was first identif ...

Operational setbacks

On July 6, 2013, an unattended 74-car freight train carrying Bakken Formation crude oil rolled down a 1.2% grade from Nantes and derailed in downtown Lac-Mégantic, resulting in the fire and explosion of multiple tank cars and the confirmed death of forty-two people and five more missing and presumed dead. On October 11, 2013, Transport Canada imposed an

embargo Economic sanctions are commercial and financial penalties applied by one or more countries against a targeted self-governing state, group, or individual. Economic sanctions are not necessarily imposed because of economic circumstances—they m ...

on the line between Lennoxville and Lac-Mégantic due to poor track conditions, necessitating cancellation of a planned special train to

Lac-Mégantic, Quebec Lac-Mégantic () is a town in the Eastern Townships region of Quebec, Canada. It is located on Lac Mégantic, a freshwater lake after which the town was named. Situated in the former Frontenac County in the historic Eastern Townships, Lac-Mé ...

which was to have run from

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

Halloween Halloween or Hallowe'en (less commonly known as Allhalloween, All Hallows' Eve, or All Saints' Eve) is a celebration observed in many countries on 31 October, the eve of the Western Christian feast of All Saints' Day. It begins the observanc ...

. On April 25, 2014, the service was cancelled for the season due to accidental fire damage to one of the panorama cars. The season was to have started May 7. Regular operation of the tourist train resumed in 2016. On October 8th, 2020, it was announced that operations would permanently cease. The train had not operated for a number of months before that due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

References

External links

* {{Canada heritage railways Heritage railways in Quebec 2006 establishments in Quebec

History

Operational setbacks

See also

References

External links