Draft:Wolfe's Cove Tunnel: Difference between revisions

Wolfe's Cove Tunnel (French: Tunnel de l'Anse au Foulon, Tunnel sous la colline de Québec) is a railway tunnel located in Quebec City, Quebec, Canada. It is the only significant railway tunnel in the city and connects the Saint-Sauveur district to the Port of Quebec, running under Avenue Belvédère.

History

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 Anse au Foulon (Wolfe's Cove). The tunnel was built to accomodate passengers coming from the Empress of Britain, and then taking the train, mainly from Quebec to Montreal. 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. Work was carried out simultaneously from both ends by the Dominion Construction Company, and on 16 February 1931 drilling was completed, the two teams meeting exactly as planned. Around 600 workers worked on the tunnel's construction. The first train ran through the tunnel on 26 May and the tunnel was officially inaugurated on 1 June 1931, to a crowd of around 100 000 people. However, in the early 1950s, Montreal became the main summer ocean terminal, after the masts on the ships were shortened to permit passage under the Jacques-Cartier Bridge. Liners did continue to call at Quebec, but boat trains became infrequent.

South entrance of the tunnel

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 interrnodal container terminal, because Transatlantic passenger service had 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. Wolfe's Cove Tunnel continued to have trains running through it. Though the trains are now operated by the Quebec-Gatineau Railway, which acquired the CPR route between Quebec and Montreal in 1997. Today, trains are an infrequent occurence in the tunnel, passing through a few times per week.

Between 2020 and 2023, the tunnel was used more frequently, owing to the renovation works taking place on Champlain Boulevard, which included moving the already existing railroad, blocking access to the Port of Quebec via the coastal railroad.

Details

The tunnel is 1.6 km (1.0 mi) in length. The roof of the tunnel is around 100 m (330 ft) below the highest point of land above. The northern entrance can easily be seen from Charest Boulevard looking south, near the Dollard-des-Ormeaux park. The bridge passing above the train tracks was built in 1967. The southern entrance is hidden from easy view, owing to the construction of the Champlain Boulevard in the 1960s.