Quebec & Gosford Sidetracking

Those who know Chris Mears and discuss with him frequently have come to fear him as he can elicit fascinating conversations that literally derail your train of thoughts toward the deepest fiber of your soul. Such a thing occurred to me recently when our discussion took a tangent toward the 1870s-1890s and the elegant 4-4-0s of the era. Add the nice Bachmann retooled 4-4-0 in the game and various old time equipment kitbashes and you have a recipe for disaster. Or should I say, a joyful recipe for fanning all over the fundamentals of railroading. But honestly, nothing is new about this discussion since it has been going on over and over since I was thinking about doing Temiscouata, then Stanstead which I always wanted to expand but with is too big for my layout room.

 

Bachmann retooled 4-4-0 (credit: Bachmann)

I can’t recall what sparked the exchange of thoughts, but for some reason, I ended up digging into the venerable Quebec & Gosford Railway which was the first railway built in Quebec City between 1869 and 1870 and operated from 1870 to 1872. Ill-fated because it adopted the wooden rail system developed by the American engineer Hulbert to save cost and was plagued by 4% grades, it was almost a financial success and would later be redeveloped and entirely rebuilt when the company was reorganized under the new name of Quebec & Lake St. John Railway. Unsurprisingly enough, Horace Jansen Beemer would be the man that would save the day and accomplish this undertaking.

 

Original Quebec & Gosford plans (credit: BAnQ)

The only picture of Q&G under construction circa 1871 (credit: Collection Marc Carette)

While only a very few pictures and drawings exist of the Quebec & Gosford, some contemporary descriptions and company documents give a good idea of what it was. Hadn’t it been plagued by the evitable engineering mistakes, the line would have been quite successful as demonstrated by the impressive earnings the company was able to generate during the few months of the year it operated.

 

The engine house at Rivière-à-Pierre on Q&LStJ (credit: BAnQ)

Q&LStJ, the spiritual descendant of Q&GR is much more documented and nice photographs of the era documenting its construction gives an excellent idea of what was happening in the backwoods of French Canada in the 1870s. One thing is sure, small shacks, settlers’ homes, railway structures and sawmills were quickly dotting an otherwise pristine forested land. And in that archetypical Canadian landscape, we know that the first Quebec & Gosford locomotives, bought new from Rhode Island Locomotive Works were working hard with their colorful paint, their brass appliances and gilded ornamentation. That contrast, between state-of-the-art machinery and the frontier is always appealing, hence why so many modellers are entrenched in that era that surprisingly never gets the coverage it warrants.

The second bridge over Jacques-Cartier river in 1879 (credit: BAnQ)

All these thoughts make sense when you understand what I tried to achieve with the demonstration Stanstead layout that served the purpose to prove that early pre-nationalization Canadian railways were worth modelling and fascinating. Each time I go to the basement, I see the module and its beautiful landscape and can’t help to gaze upon it, sometimes running even a modern locomotive on it.

A typical settlement along the line (credit: BAnQ)

I’ve always wondered if this layout could be expanded, and this is certainly the case. However, I have hardly the space in the house to currently do that. Nevertheless, I recently set a shelf over Monk Subdivision staging room to set a Kato Unitrak testing and programming track. As Chris mentioned, it was in some sense, the start of a layout. When I tried to run a pair of Bachmann Brill trolleys, I dug out my Montreal & Southern Counties track plan tailored for that room and looked at ways to improve upon it. From that point, I was doomed.

Q&LStJ No.5 was similar to Jacques Cartier (credit: BAnQ)

For some reasons, I revived my old Rivarossi Genoa 4-4-0 and seeing it runnings around the room was awesome… Some kind of revelation about the nature of what that shelf could become. I loved it and decided to start sketching based on descriptions of the first railways around Quebec City. At some point, the descriptions of our first locomotive, the “Jacques Cartier” and its sisters “Quebec” and “Gosford” came back. The original terminal in downtown Quebec City (St. Sauveur borough) was spartan with laconic descriptions of a house serving as a station, a reservoir, an engine house and other temporary structures and I suspect it was the same about Gosford, albeit much more simpler if newspaper accounts of the era are to be trusted.

Anyway, I find that era both fascinating and providing a plethora of small and achievable challenges. Building Stanstead was the epitome of "Model Railroading is Fun" and as mentioned, I always wanted to expand it to provide some running length to the trains. Time to move forward by making my railroading small and achievable again, and that includes Monk. I always perform better on more focussed projects that stand out and it was always my desire to continue my journey documenting what modelling pre-nationalization railways in Canada is all about. Doing frontier stuff that happened 150 years ago in what are now Quebec City northern suburbs is both thrilling and fascinating.