The coming of the train in the 1890s ended the almost complete isolation of Morin Township.
The train brought in the first summer, then all year, visitors to Morin and started a lively tourist industry, especially with the development of skiing in the 1920s.
Laurentian Rest was one of several large boarding house
Sir Casimir Gzowski, great-grandfather of Canadian broadcaster Peter Gzowski, and engineer for the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railway, forerunner to the Grand Trunk, built this trestle over the St. Francis River at the north end of Richmond in 1852.
(Photo courtesy of the Richmond County Historical Society Archives)
John LeBoutillier, originally from the Isle of Jersey in the English Channel, became a very successful Gaspé merchant and political figure. He was originally employed by the Robin Company, important fish merchants, where he learned the skills of the cod fish trade.
In the 1800s railways were needed in the Eastern Townships to get to raw materials, for fast travel, the growth of businesses, and to fill in the desire to build more railway lines. In the past most people didn’t have cars to travel with or trucks to carry materials. Railways met this need.
A tourist steam train runs between the city of Gatineau and the village of Wakefield for about eight months of the year, bringing visitors through the wooded hills and along the scenic Gatineau River.
In response to a plan to connect Montreal’s airport to the downtown by diverting the existing CPR tracks around the Bell Centre and old Windsor Station to a new elevated terminus with multi-story commercial and office space, Michael Fish has publicly expressed his opinion that it would be cheaper to demolish the Bell Centre and reopen the old Windsor Station as a commuter
