Montreal Railfanning Questions

Where is the best spot to railfan at in Montreal? Is it still Dorval and what are traffic levels like? How is the scanner reception and do the crews/dispatchers communicate in English?


Lakeshore out

Yes Dorval is a good place. The CP crew to dispatch speak usualy in english, but not always for CN. For the CN it's easy whitout scanner because you can see east/west signal from the VIA platform. The traffic is good, exept on CP during commuter rush hours. The commuter station at Ville Lasalle is a very nice place to, the MMA and the CP train from the D&H use this mainline. There are just a few train and they are mostly in the morning but the sun is perfect for great pictures as well. Hope this will help you!

when does most freight traffic run through dorval?

video about "snow" train http://www.rail-videos.net/video/view.php?id=1422

thanks for the info. useful stuff for sure.

i was just wondering if anyone here has seen many cold storage cars in montreal...
ive seen maybe 5 in as many years.
a few around the main tashereau yard and some in the east.
i was wondering if theyve been replaced by intermodal containers?
or can they still be spotted in montreal?

It looks like I will be in Montreal between Jan 3 thru 6 and was wondering where are some places I might see some trains? Freight would be nice, I would also like to try and find the NJT equip as its where I come from and I like the FH's. Can anyone give me some places? I will not have a car as I'm coming in on Amtrak.

Thanks!

I would recommend Dorval. It's about 10 miles west of downtown on the AMT commuter line from Lucien L'Allier (Former Windsor Station) The CN and CP mains run parallel through here and are essentially a four track main and very busy with CN, CP, VIA and AMT trains.

Stay off the AMT Station platforms unless you have a ticket as it’s a “Fare Paid Zone” But there is no problem hanging out at the VIA Dorval Station and seeing other railfans with a camera is common. I’ve never been hassled.

Thanks for the recomendation I think I'll check it out!

Kaback9 wrote:It looks like I will be in Montreal between Jan 3 thru 6 and was wondering where are some places I might see some trains? Freight would be nice, I would also like to try and find the NJT equip as its where I come from and I like the FH's. Can anyone give me some places? I will not have a car as I'm coming in on Amtrak.

Thanks!

The NJT equip lives on the St-Hillaire Line, unfortunately only one or two trainsets have NJT equip right now, and the line is Peak only. On the bright side, the St-Lambert station on that line is accross the street from the St-Lambert station the Adirondack stops at.

Mike

oleanfuzz wrote:

Kaback9 wrote:It looks like I will be in Montreal between Jan 3 thru 6 and was wondering where are some places I might see some trains? Freight would be nice, I would also like to try and find the NJT equip as its where I come from and I like the FH's. Can anyone give me some places? I will not have a car as I'm coming in on Amtrak.

Thanks!

The NJT equip lives on the St-Hillaire Line, unfortunately only one or two trainsets have NJT equip right now, and the line is Peak only. On the bright side, the St-Lambert station on that line is accross the street from the St-Lambert station the Adirondack stops at.

Mike

Maybe will get lucky

Can anyone here help me with navigating AMT? I plan on going to Dorval as was mentioned by NS VIA FAN as a place to do some railfanning around the Montreal area. I would like to know what train frequencies are like regarding AMT. Here in NJ if I miss my train I know another one will be coming even durring off peak hours, does AMT run trains every hour or will I be stuck to a schedule? The example I will give is I sometimes use NJT when Railfanning, and I will get off at one station stick around for a while get on another train head to another stop, spend some time there and then get on a train to take home.

The AMT Montreal-Dorion route, which stops at Dorval, runs service throughout the day including weekends. Service is nowhere near as frequent as once an hour however, except during the weekday rush.

The Monday-Friday westbound schedule is here: http://www.amt.qc.ca/tc/train/horaires/ ... =1&ligne=2
and eastbound is here: http://www.amt.qc.ca/tc/train/horaires/ ... =1&ligne=2

Saturday and Sunday/holiday train schedules are also available on the AMT website which is in French only (with minor exceptions) at this time.

You might consider using the bus & subway (métro) to get around for part of your travels. STM buses serve most AMT train stations out to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

Ken V wrote:You might consider using the bus & subway (métro) to get around for part of your travels. STM buses serve most AMT train stations out to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.

I've found the easiest way to get out to Dorval (or back downtown) when there isn't a convenient AMT train is to take the Green or Orange Metro line to the Lionel-Groulx Station (just west of Downtown) then catch a #211 bus which runs express to the Dorval Terminal adjacent to the VIA Station. Service is frequent: about every 20 min.

And you said you are going to be here from Jan. 3 to 6?......Dress Warm!!!!

I plan on dressing warm haha, I have done some crazy winter railfan trips before! and I think I'll look into the bus and might take AMT back. I would like to say I have rode all transit syatems in US and Canada and if I get AMT out of the way that only leaves the US!