Canadian Pacific's Tunnel at Wolfe's Cove, Quebec City
From Quebec City Administrative Committee Records, 1930
On May 30th , 1930, the Administrative Committee of the City of Quebec approved the construction report of the Canadian Pacific Railway's new track from Saint-Malo to l'Anse-au-Foulon(Wolfe's Cove). The new track includes a tunnel of 5380ft(70 feet in excess of 1 mile) running through the historical headland on which is built the city of Quebec. The line provides a direct connection for the Railway's trains between the new port facilities at Wolfe's Cove on the St Lawrence River and the Railway's main Quebec-Montreal line.
(Expanded Quebec City Map {Large File)The roof of the tunnel is 330ft below the highest point of land above, and the bore required the removal of 80,000 cubic yards of rock and other material. Work was carried out simultaneously from both ends by the Dominion Construction Company, and on 16 February 1930 drilling was completed, the two teams meeting exactly as planned. Currently, the interior cement lining of the tunnel has been completed over a distance of 1800ft; hence it is certain that the tunnel will be ready in early May next year.
(Text translated and adapted into English from Administrative Committee records, report 901[1930], in the Quebec City Archives, as transcribed by Denis Fortier of Cap-a-l'Aigle, Que., in June 2001. He maintains a web page with both French and English content, which is at http://netrover.com/~capaigle/dfrail.htm )
Although CPR developed some freight traffic at the Cove, the building of the tunnel was primarily in conjunction with construction of Canadian Pacific Steamships' Wolfe's Cove Harbour Terminal for summer passenger service on the trans-Atlantic route(the winter terminal being at Saint John, N.B.) and the introduction of the new Atlantic 'Empress' ship, the Empress of Britain, which also entered service in 1931. While the first train ran through the tunnel on May 26th, the official opening took place June 1st, 1931, coincident with the first docking of the Empress of Britain .
CPSS House Flag
As well as being used by the Empresses, the terminal also served ships operated by Cunard and other companies.
Boat-train DrumheadThe terminal consisted of a long two-level shed along the water's edge to serve steamships, its upper level connected by an aerial walkway to a second building in which were located offices and railway passenger facilities. Between them under the walkway were a number of tracks; arriving/departing ships would have connecting Empress Special boat trains, usually between Quebec and Montreal, but also at times in the first years of use to Vancouver. On the Pacific coast these trains would connect in turn with the CPSS trans-Pacific service -- fulfilling CPR's "Spans the World" and "World's Most Complete Travel System" advertising slogans. The reason Quebec rather than Montreal was chosen as the location of the summer terminal for the Empresses was because of the height of the ship's masts: They were too tall to clear the new Jacques-Cartier Bridge, located immediately downstream of the passenger terminals in the Port of Montreal. However, in the early 1950s Montreal did become the main summer ocean terminal for CPSS, after the masts on the ships were shortened to permit passage under the bridge. Liners did continue to call at Quebec, but boat trains became infrequent.
As of 1964, the St Lawrence was kept open year-round above Quebec to Montreal. Nevertheless, in the early 1970s CPR chose to build at the Cove its main Atlantic service intermodal container terminal -- trans-Atlantic passenger service having disappeared by then. It remained there for a relatively short time however; within ten years it was closed, with CPR transferring container operations to Montreal.
The Wolfe's Cove Tunnel continues to have trains running through it. The trains now though are operated by the Quebec-Gatineau Railway, which acquired the CPR route between Quebec and Montreal in recent years. The tunnel portal at the Cove is just east of Gilmour's Hill; since construction of Champlain Blvd along the bottom of the cliffs between the Quebec Bridge and Lower Town in the late 1960s it has been hidden from easy view.
9 Sept. 1970
Trains of the CPR were not the first to enter Wolfe's Cove.When it arrived on the scene in 1931 it made a connection with and crossed the tracks of the Canadian National Railways(now designated as the Champlain Spur in CNR timetables). This line was originally built by the National Transcontinental Railway, descending the cliffs from the north shore end of the Quebec Bridge in Ste-Foy to the NTR passenger station beside the river below Dufferin Terrace(adjacent to the location of the present Levis ferry dock).
