Modelling Le Tortillard du Saint-Laurent

An iconic part of modern Murray Bay Subdivision are the numerous attempts at kickstarting touristic trains based to link the highly sough after Charlevoix area with Quebec City. Granted the majestic landscape only seen from the railway is a understandable incencitive to provide such a service.

Excursion trains weren't a rarity on the line back in the days and even the famous CN 6060 pulled a passenger train in the 1960s. However, it's only in 1984 that a regular service tourist train was put in service to take advantage of the 450 years anniversary of Jacques Cartier's first voyage to Canada. In Quebec City, an ill-fated event called "Les Grands Voiliers" (The Great Sail Ships) was expected to draw hundred of thousands of people to the old capital and it was thought that a touristic train would be the perfect opportunity to draw crowds to Charlevoix.

A man, Jacques Leblond, with a few associates, dreamed of a train but they had to "build" one from scratch on short notice. Through various contacts, they were able to rent a few GO Transit Bombardier bilevel coaches, refurbish an old baggage car into a generator car and secure CN participation in providing a GP9RM freshly out of the shops to pull the consist. That strange looking train was quite unusual, but struck the imagination of the crows and with an indeniable sense of creativity, provided an enjoyable experience to passengers.

That train was a popular success and was reconducted for an another year, but it hardly made money and was cancelled until the idea was revived in 1995 by another group of investors.

My personal link with this train was that it was my first time riding a train up until the mid-2005. I was two years old and my recollection are barely reliable. But it made an impact and since high school, I wanted to model it in HO. It was a hard thing to do, but when Proto 2000 released short hood GP9 in CN colors and Athearn made the bilevel coaches, it became a possibility. However, It's truly when Rapido made a newer and better version of the GO Transit coaches that it really became a serious possibility. I quickly ordered six coaches and bought a Supercontinental smooth side baggage car to repaint in Tortillard du Saint-Laurent scheme. Finally, last month, when I visited Vermont & Essex Club, I stopped en route to Modèle B.T. in Drummondville and acquired a Rapido GP9RM identical to the one pulling the Tortillard (OK, granted Rapido made locomotive #4028 instead of #4027, but I can live with that).

Tortillard as described in Branchline July-August 1985 issue (Bytown Railway Society)

Jérôme had the pleasure to inaugurate the train on our layout and honestly, it was a fascinating sight and something interesting to run. I can certainly see operation potential around that train.

The next step was to design custom decals for the generator car which was done quickly and now, it just a matter of ordering the decals and painting it up.