Charlevoix Railway Sold

Erick Pelletier reported on AtlanticRails that the Chemin de fer de Charlevoix (CFC), aka the Charlevoix Railway, has been sold to Groupe le Massif, a businessman who already owns a ski mountain in Petite-Rivière-Saint-François. It seems he will operate a tourist train over the line, while CN will operate the existing freight operation. CN and Le Massif will jointly pay for track upgrades.

Two links: Both in French

That makes zero railways held by the Quebec Railway Corporation.

CN Purchases NBEC, CFMG, OCR, COGEMA

The CN - Quebec Railway Corporation deal finally hit the news. CN is purchasing most of the assets of the QRC, specifically the CFMG, NBEC, OCR and the COGEMA rail ferry service (CN Press Release, Canadian Press, Financial Post, CNN Money, Progressive Railroading). CN says "Post-transaction, it will be 'business as usual' under CN ownership, with no immediate changes in freight, VIA Rail passenger rail service or employment levels," but we all know there will be changes in the future.

(CFMG = Chemin de fer de Matapedia et Golf, NBEC = New Brunswick East Coast Railway, OCR = Ottawa Central Railway)

From the Canadian Press article: "CN said it plans to invest capital over the next three years to upgrade the rail lines and will replace the existing locomotive fleet with more modern motive power. The company does not plan any changes to freight, VIA Rail passenger rail service or employment levels."

At the same time, Logistec purchased the Sydney Coal Railway (SCR) from the QRC (Logistec release). Logistec owned a portion of the QRC already, and it looks like it will be financing the purchase of SCR from the money it receives from the sale of the other QRC properties.

The Canadian Press article also says that CN will operate the Gaspe line, which makes sense.

The QRC will be left with the Chemin de fer de Charlevoix (CFC) near Quebec City, and that's it.

So, what does this mean? Nothing in the short term. In the long term, the MLW units will all disappear and be replaced by the usual CN units. I expect the maintenance shop in Campbellton (Eastern Rail Services, ERS) will be shut down. The big plus for shippers and passengers is that there should be significant capital investment in the line to bring it up to snuff for the big CN units and trains, and that means faster transit times for passengers and less slow orders. I wouldn't be too surprised to see one of the two regular CN freights (305/308 or 473/474) shifted from the Napadogan subdivision to the former CFMG/NBEC line to replace the NBEC 402/403 freight.

Get your shots of the NBEC and CFMG units while you can!

1835 on the CFC

NBEC 1835 went to the Chemin de fer de Charlevoix in Quebec early this month. Here's photographic proof in this (somewhat odd) railfanning video.


Here it was in Bathurst in July 2006.

NBEC and CFC videos, with a twist

Michel R posted a video of NBEC 586, the ore train, leaving Bathurst in the evening for the Brunswick Mines site on the Nepisiguit subdivision. The train had NBEC 1868 and NBEC 1819 with 10 of the short ore cars (345xxx series), 12 CN covered gondolas, and 3 AOK covered hoppers.


This one from Nicober100 is a little different! It features a Microsoft Train Simulator view of former NBEC 4214 on the Chemin de Fer de Charlevoix (CFC) with two LLPX GP-15 units.

As I blogged earlier it appears 4214 has gone to another Quebec Railway Corporation line.

NBEC 1816 in Quebec again

As I mentioned back on February 3, NBEC 1816 was in Quebec. Apparently it left the CFC a day after it arrived, but came back on February 9 and has remained there since.

Jean Francois Dumont took some photos of 1816 on the 10th and posted them to Railpictures.net.

This one is my favourite.
A close runner-up.
A great distance shot.
This doesn't really show 1816 but it does show one of CFC's locos quite well.