The Railways in the Seigneury of Lévrard-Becquet
In 1906, Liguori Béique merged three companies into the Quebec, Montreal and Southern Railway, whose terminus stopped at Fortierville; the line never paid its way and the C.N. abandoned it in 1940.
Written in French by Alain Manset, May 22, 2015. Quotations from period documents are left in the original. Lire l’original en français.
With the industrial revolution around the 1850s, and with overland routes being inadequate, the railway enjoyed a surge of enthusiasm. The aim was to encourage economic and social development and to make communications easier, so as to bring prosperity to the regions; and, another important factor, government subsidies were generous.
In 1906, the businessman Liguori Béique bought three (3) south-shore railway companies to form the Quebec, Montreal and Southern Railway. His goal was to link Montréal and Québec, ending near the falls of the rivière Chaudière; but the terminus ended up at Fortierville.
That train left Montréal, crossed the Victoria Bridge heading for Sorel, then turned toward the river, following more or less the line of today's Route 132. At St-Grégoire, the route ran behind the church. And if you take rue des Milans in Gentilly, the course is easy to picture by following the high-tension line that cuts across the farmland toward Ste Sophie, which gives a good idea of the alignment.
Mr. Béique would sell his company to an American competitor, the Delaware and Hudson (Delson - Lake Champlain - New York), which was acquired by the C.N. in 1929.
This section always ran at a loss for the C.N., because the train did not reach Québec and because the region's economic development had been overestimated.
In 1940, the C.N. abandoned the line, since it also owned the line running through Manseau, which was far more profitable. Part of the Montreal, Quebec and Southern Railway route was kept in order to serve the Bécancour industrial park.
On old topographic maps, another route is shown running parallel to the Montreal, Quebec and Southern Railway; this was the Atlantic and Lake Superior Railway. In 1901, a group of businessmen obtained the permit to build it; among other holdings they owned the Baie des Chaleurs railway company (which would end in scandal), the Grand Oriental and the Ottawa Valley companies. Nothing was ever built: the projects stayed on paper.
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