Mount Royal Tunnel

This is an illustrated history of the electrified railway tunnel and station complex still serving Montreal. This story had its start in the pre-World War I railway building boom, when Canadian Northern Railway set out to provide Canadians with competition to the Canadian Pacific and Grand Trunk railways. Since those competitors had already established entries into Montreal from the east, west, and south, CNoR decided that entering downtown from the north, even though a four-mile tunnel through Mount Royal would be required. This book describes the building of CNoR's huge complex that became today's Central Station, and the site for downtown Montreal's massive complex: Place Ville Marie, Queen Elizabeth Hotel, Place Bonaventure, CN headquarters, and other large office buildings. The clean-running electric locomotives hauled trainloads of commuters to the CNoR's 'Model City' development and other suburbs to Montreal's north-west, with change-overs made to steam locomotives (later diesels) to take inter-city trains to Ottawa, Toronto, and the western provinces.