Making my first trip to Montreal in about a year, I was saddened to see my employer has destroyed a large portion of the roundhouse at St. Luc yard. The formerly 37-stall facility is now reduced to 4 or 5 stalls. Intact at my last visit, the roundhouse is near the edge of the yard, and would have made a wonderful place to display some of over 100 remaining Canadian Pacific steam and early diesel locomotives. The 110-foot turntable, modernized with a new controller, remains in place.

Completed in 1950, just a decade before CPR's total dieselization, the roundhouse was of concrete construction, largely fireproof, and still in good condition as of last year. In later years, it was used by maintenance of way forces as well as the diesel shop, and at the last was used by Progress Rail, a contracted firm that does locomotive and car repair on some CP properties (unionized railroaders have a less euphamistic term for this practice). St. Luc Yard was one of CPR's shining examples of modernization when built, and contained an automated hump yard and modern diesel shop near the roundhouse; the hump was bulldozed a few years ago and only flat switching occurs today.

St. Luc was the last roundhouse in the Montreal area, with CPR's Glen facility being demolished a decade or so ago, and Canadian National's Turcot facility being demolished in the 1960s, after reportedly being offered to the Canadian Railway Museum just after its creation in the Delson suburb.

http://www.jefflubchanskycpa.com/rndhousestluc11-13-97.jpg
ryarger@rypn.org

For the record, St. Luc was the second newest roundhouse in Canada, the newest being a 1954-built structure at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan. At last report, the latter was still used privately for storage.

http://www.pipcom.com/~tempus/trains/roundhouse.html
ryarger@rypn.org

For the record, the St. Luc roundhouse was second newest in Canada. The newest was built in 1954 by CN at Prince Albert, Saskatchewan, and was still used privately for storage at last report.

ryarger@rypn.org

I was in Montreal just three weeks ago, and I too had a chance to take a look at St. Luc. I believe I counted 9 stalls out of the 37 I last saw about 5 years ago.

I believe that leaves the Toronto CPR John Street roundhouse as the largest surviving engine house in Canada. However, John Street is ear marked to be a museum, and no longer has rail access, and likely never will again because somebody in their infinite wisdom built something called "SkyDome" in the way one direction, and an underground parking lot in the other direction which can't support the weight of railway equipment...geez!

> Making my first trip to Montreal in about a
> year, I was saddened to see my employer has
> destroyed a large portion of the roundhouse
> at St. Luc yard. The formerly 37-stall
> facility is now reduced to 4 or 5 stalls.

Note in the photos that there were no smokejacks on the roundhouse when it was built. This is because it was considered a "smokeless" roundhouse, as was Toronto's John Street facility. As designed, locomotives had their fires dumped outside and ran in on the remaining steam. They were kept hot inside on house steam, which provided enough power to back outside again, where the coal fire was rebuilt.

ryarger@rypn.org

> I was in Montreal just three weeks ago, and
> I too had a chance to take a look at St.
> Luc. I believe I counted 9 stalls out of the
> 37 I last saw about 5 years ago.

> I believe that leaves the Toronto CPR John
> Street roundhouse as the largest surviving
> engine house in Canada. However, John Street
> is ear marked to be a museum, and no longer
> has rail access, and likely never will again
> because somebody in their infinite wisdom
> built something called "SkyDome"
> in the way one direction, and an underground
> parking lot in the other direction which
> can't support the weight of railway
> equipment...geez! Sorry to hear about that. I remember when St luc had more steam than diesel. I think Istill have a shot of a dead 3000 going over the hump. Most of the time when I was in mtl. I did the glen and turcot. You could take the trolly to one and walk to the other one. Not bad for a few hours work.


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