The Maritime Express was a Canadian passenger train. When it was launched on 1 March 1898, it was the flagship of the Intercolonial Railway (ICR) between Halifax, Nova Scotia and Montreal, Quebec. The train was operated by the Canadian National Railway (CNR) from 1919 until 1964, when it was reduced to a regional service and its name retired.
Construction of the Intercolonial Railway The call for a railway to link Canada's Maritime Provinces with the colonies of Upper Canada and Lower Canada (after 1840, the Province of Canada), gained momentum by the mid-1830s. In 1835, editor Joseph Howe, a future Nova Scotia premier, wrote in the Novascotian that railway construction would greatly enhance trade within the province.Seton, L.A. (1958, March). The Intercolonial Railway: Part one – Genesis of the project. Canadian Railway Historical Association News Report, 87, 31–38. Retrieved from https://www.exporail.org/can_rail/Canadian%20Rail_no087_1958.pdf
In April 1846, the Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia, Sir Colin Campbell, wrote to William Gladstone, Britain's Secretary of State for Colonial Affairs, calling for a survey of a route for a rail connection linking Halifax with Montreal. In June of that year, Captain John Pipon and Lieutenant E. Wallcott Henderson of the Royal Corps of Engineers were ordered to conduct a survey to identify the optimal route. Pipon would die in the attempt, drowned in New Brunswick's Restigouche River in November 1846, to be replaced by Major William Robinson.Underwood, J. (2005). Built for war: Canada’s Intercolonial Railway. Pickering ON: Railfare
It was Robinson's 1849 report to the legislatures of Canada, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia that would largely define the route of the interprovincial railway. He identified four advantages of a rail line that would traverse northern New Brunswick, close to the shores of the Bay of Chaleur: opening the region to settlement, reduced elevations, lower cost and the military advantage of distance from the United States border.Underwood, Ibid
Construction of what was to become the Intercolonial's main line began in the mid-1850s, with the first trains operating on the Nova Scotia Railway between Halifax and Truro in 1858. In 1864, the British and colonial governments appointed the engineer Sandford Fleming to survey possible routes;Creet, M. (2003).Fleming, Sir Sandford. In Dictionary of Canadian Biography, vol. 14. University of Toronto/Université Laval. Retrieved from [www.biographi.ca/en/bio/fleming_sandford_14E.html Fleming] by 1867 he declared his support for the northern route advocated by Robinson.Underwood, J. (2005). Built for war: Canada’s Intercolonial Railway. Pickering ON: Railfare-DC Books. Construction to complete the link between the Maritimes and Quebec would wait until after Confederation in 1867. (Indeed, construction of the railway was to be a condition of the union, enshrined in the Constitution Act, 1867.)Marsh, J. J. (2015): Railway history, at The Canadian Encyclopedia, accessed September 3, 2019. dated March 4, 2015
Passenger service on the Intercolonial Railway There was no formal “last spike” commemoration when the last section of the ICR's line between Quebec and Halifax was completed on 1 July 1876.Intercolonial Railway-1876 (2001). Canadian Rail (483), pp. 111-129. Work had been completed in sections, with passenger and freight service offered as important communities were linked. Construction crews completed the difficult task of traversing Nova Scotia's Cobequid Mountains in 1872Underwood., J. (2010). A line through the hills: How the Intercolonial Railway crossed Nova Scotia’s Cobequid Mountains. Halifax: Pennydreadful. and the first passenger train from Halifax reached Saint John, New Brunswick on 11 November that year. (Although, not without incident, the train having been delayed three hours by a derailed ballast train.)Smith, D.N.W. (2004). The Ocean Limited: A centennial tribute. Ottawa: Trackside Canada. Two years later, the first trains ran between Mont-Joli, Quebec and Campbellton, New Brunswick.
The first through passenger trains to link Montreal and Halifax departed on 3 July 1876, using Intercolonial tracks between Halifax and Rivière-du-Loup, Quebec, and tracks of the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) to Montreal. The trains took almost a day and a half to reach their destinations. The westbound train, called the Quebec Express, was scheduled to leave Halifax at 7:10 p.m., arriving in Montreal two days later at 6:30 a.m.; the eastbound Saint John & Halifax Express left Montreal at 10:00 p.m., arriving in Halifax at 8:25 a.m. The trains carried Pullman Company first class cars, the first sleeping cars to operate in eastern Canada.
(Pullman's presence in Atlantic Canada was short-lived. Demand for sleeping car space fell short of projections, averaging six beds per trip over the first two years. ICR ended its Pullman contract, taking over sleeping car operations, in 1885.)
The schedules’ 36-hour running time required coach passengers to change trains at Point Levi, Quebec; sleeping cars were added to connecting regional trains. The trains originated and terminated at GTR's Bonaventure Station in Montreal and North Street Station in Halifax.Starting in August 1877. Before that, Halifax trains stopped at the station built in 1854 by the Nova Scotia Railway at Richmond. Smith, Ibid.
Inauguration of the Maritime Express By the dawn of the 1890s, the ICR recognized the need for improved service on its Halifax-Montreal route. Beginning in 1889, the Canadian Pacific Railway (CPR) had become a direct competitor, operating its Eastern Express and Western Express trains out of Montreal's Windsor Station via Sherbrooke, Quebec and Saint John to Halifax. Most vexing for ICR managers, the federal government had granted running rights to the CPR over ICR rails from Saint John to Halifax. By virtue of its shorter route, the CPR was able to complete the trip in three hours less than the Intercolonial trains. ICR responded by petitioning the government to extend its own tracks to Montreal through the purchase of a regional Quebec line, eliminating the need to change trains in Point-Levi. The railway also secured permission to purchase more powerful locomotives and new modern cars.Smith, Ibid.
On 1 March 1898, the Intercolonial launched a faster schedule, rebranding its flagship trains as the Maritime Express. The eastbound train left Montreal at 7:30 p.m., arriving in Halifax the next day at 9:40 p.m.; westbound, the train departed Halifax at 1:30 p.m. and pulled into Bonaventure station the following day at 5:35 p.m. The trains featured first-class dining cars and sleepers built by the Wagner Palace Car Company. The sleepers featured 10 open sections and two drawing rooms, “finished in polished mahogany beautifully inlaid with lighter woods [with] ceilings of green and gold, in the Empire style, and the upholstering…of a rich green plush.”Smith, Ibid.
In 1900, the ICR revised the schedule of the eastbound Maritime Express to depart Montreal at 11:30 a.m., arriving in Halifax a day later at 3:30 p.m. This allowed for an early evening arrival at Point-Levi, providing a more convenient ferry connection for passengers crossing the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City. On the whole, the train proved to be popular with travellers, with a 45% increase in sleeping car revenues and a 260% jump in dining car revenues in its first year of operation.Smith, Ibid.
Expansion
Between 1900 and the outbreak of World War I in 1914, ICR invested heavily in improvements to its rolling stock, motive power and infrastructure. It ordered new passenger cars, installed upgraded tracks and bridges to carry heavier trains, and constructed impressive new stations in communities along the line. In 1912 the railway undertook a massive project to construct a new terminus in the south end of Halifax, connecting it to the main line by blasting through miles of solid bedrock. The project would prove to be prescient when North Street Station and much of the railway's waterfront infrastructure was wrecked by the Halifax Explosion in 1917. The Maritime Express moved to a new “temporary” south end station on 22 December 1918 and to the new Halifax Station in 1928.
The Maritime Express continued to build patronage through its first 12 years. Heavy traffic often required the addition of a second following section; in 1906 Christmas travel volumes forced the addition of a third section on part of the route. In 1904, the railway began to replace its older, lighter engines, mostly 4-6-0 “Ten-wheeler” types, with faster and more powerful 4-6-2 “Pacifics” built by Kingston Locomotive Works and Montreal Locomotive Works (MLW). Travellers were enchanted by the bucolic Maritime scenery as the train skirted the Bay of Chaleur, crossed the Tantramar Marshes between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and crested the Cobequid Mountains. Journalist (and future Nova Scotia premier) William Stevens Fielding wrote in 1872 that the view of Nova Scotia's Wentworth Valley from the train was “a scene of grandeur and beauty unequalled by any other. (…) It seemed as though the mountain were a monarch clothed in the loveliest raiment, sitting there to protect the smiling and fruitful valley. No wonder the ladies ceased their gossip, the card players threw aside their cards, and singers forgot their songs. All gazed with admiration on the beautiful scene spread out before them."Underwood, J. (n.d.). A train runs through it. Saltscapes. Retrieved from http://www.saltscapes.com/roots-folks/628-a-train-runs-through-it.html
The success of the Maritime Express led in 1904 to the introduction of a second Montreal-Halifax train on the route. ICR inaugurated the Ocean Limited on 3 July 1904, calling it "the finest passenger service…it has ever had." Begun as a seasonal summer service, it was expanded to a year-round operation in 1912, becoming a full running mate to the Maritime Express. Like other trains bestowed with the name “Limited”, the Ocean Limited made fewer stops than the older train. Its popularity was such that the Maritime Express had added so many stops along its route that “the name ‘Express’ began to lose all meaning.”Underwood, J. (2004). The creation of a legend. Canadian Rail (500), p. 92. In the summer of 1909, the journey of the Maritime Express from Montreal to Halifax took 28 hours and 15 minutes, compared to 24 hours and 35 minutes for the Ocean Limited.
The Maritime Express operated on a six-day per week schedule for much of its history, originally eschewing Sunday departures in deference to Maritime sensibilities about travel on the Sabbath. In Quebec, where attitudes were apparently more liberal, the train operated daily between Montreal and Mont Joli for many years. With the inauguration of daily service on a year-round Ocean, the Maritime Express would maintain a Monday-Saturday schedule. Traffic volumes continued to grow on both trains to the extent that a third daily-except-Sunday train was added to the schedule in 1927, the all-sleeping car Acadian; however, the train was short-lived, an early casualty of the Great Depression in late 1929.Smith, Ibid.
The train on the bill