Three tracks link downtown, Montreal West
$35.6M AMT project aimed at reducing delays for train users
By the end of November, there will be three functioning tracks between the Lucien L’Allier and Montreal West train stations.
This is the culmination of four years of work by the Agence métropolitaine de transport, which involved adding track to the last 4.8-kilometre stretch between Vendôme and Montreal West. The track is owned by CP, but the work was paid for by the AMT, and it is hoped the third track will mean fewer delays for train users.
“It allows us to have more flexibility if there is a slowdown or a breakdown on one of the lines to be able to use the other two tracks,” said AMT spokesperson Fanie StPierre.
The stretch of track between downtown and Montreal West is called the Westmount Subdivision. It is used by 30,000 commuters daily on the Vaudreuil-Hudson, Saint-Jérôme and Candiac train lines, so a breakdown on one of the tracks can cause delays on all three of the train lines.
The $35.6 million project involved adding the track from just east of Vendôme station to Montreal West. Crews also installed six new gantries — large overhead steel structures that support the signalling equipment and span three sets of tracks — installed in Westmount and Notre-Dame-deGrâce. Signalling technology and switches were improved along the line, so trains can more easily switch between tracks. The work also included $800,000 the AMT contributed to the cost of a new train overpass in N.D.G. at Décarie and de Maisonneuve Blvds., and a wall next to the pedestrian overpass at Grand Blvd. to prevent a train from hitting the pillars that support the overpass in the event of a derailment, the AMT said.
The work done over the summer required several weekend interruptions on the line, most recently over the Thanksgiving weekend.
St-Pierre said the only parts of the project remaining is for crews to complete the third platform at the Vendôme station and to connect the third track to both sides of that platform.
The third track is only part of what’s needed for the AMT to add more departures to its Vaudreuil-Hudson line. The agency has plans to add at least four new departures to the line, including one late at night, but it needs to build a third track at the Pine Beach station in Dorval for that to be possible, StPierre said.
She said, however, the agency can’t go ahead with that plan because it is waiting for the province to unveil its final configuration for the rebuilt Dorval Circle.
“We have the money to do it, and
it is inscribed in our three-year capital budget (ending in 2017), but we can’t say when it will happen, because it has to be done only once work is completed on the Dorval
Circle,” St-Pierre said.
The Dorval Circle project, which has been promised for more than a decade, still has no firm timetable. The project’s design however, appears to be known and it includes the demolition and reconstruction of a train overpass.