Friday, April 4, 2014

Montmorency Falls


Montmorency Falls and Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré Basilica are Côte-de-Beaupré's most iconic landmarks. In fact, without them, there is very little chance a railway would have been built there back in 1889. The falls provided cheap electricity to power mills, feed Quebec City power grid and keep running at low cost electric locomotives, interurban cars and tramways filled with tourists and pilgrims.

A local freight train ready to cross the mighty Montmorency Falls

This morning, I decided to past a photo of Montmorency Falls cliffs near Dominion Textile cotton mill. The result is as good as the real thing.

I always wondered how to model the Montmorency Falls on a layout since my teenager's days. I think the answer is to model the surroundings are not try to tackle such a natural force.

On the revised track layout done by Jérôme, a track is hidden being the cliff. It represent the old wye that ended at the Falls feet. A few sidings were holding ballast cars for work trains. After all, QRL&PCo was fed by many limestone quarries that provided aggregate all over Quebec City area. Once again, the layout meets the reality.

A classic shot at Montmorency Falls wye in the late 50s (taken from late Jacques Pharand's book)

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