In the 1940s, Saturday morning trains from Montreal to Rawdon would stop briefly at Rawdon Junction. On the way back, on Sunday evening, however, a full five minutes were allocated for the junction stop. Since the train went on to Joliette on the way back one can surmise that the tracks were normally aligned for Montreal-Rawdon, and that trains calling at Joliette had to switch the points to get on that line, and then restore the Montreal-Rawdon setting behind them.
In this rare photograph of Rawdon Junction, the crossover is clearly seen. Note the unusual gates protecting one of the lines.
Though at first it was not known which line was which nor the direction the photographer was facing, researcher Daphné Poirier writes that she was:
...pleased to find a very detailed map of the Rawdon’s and Ste-Julienne’s lines on your site. By inference ...I was able to deduce from the spur at the extreme left of the picture that the person who took the picture of Rawdon Junction was facing North-West, the gates are protecting the Saint-Jerome-Joliette line and closing off the Rawdon line.
.It is believed that the photograph was taken in the 1930s.
The Joliette-St. Jerome line continued to have rudimentary passenger service until it was abandoned in the late 1940s with the opening of the belt line through northern Montreal and the opening of Montreal's Central Station.
2005/06/30
revised 2006/09/27