THE TRESSEL OF CAP-ROUGE

Each era shows its cleverness by its monuments. By the same way, our viaduct remains the witness of the era of country builders and adventurers. It is advantageously compared to other constructions of another era. The Middle Ages has its cathedrals; the 19th century has created the railways.

HISTORIC SUMMARY

More than seventy-two years ago, the residents of the Saint-Félix parish could see erecting in their peaceful valley, some cement pillars as well as the huge steel structure of the Viaduct of Cap-Rouge. In fact, it was in 1906 that the erection of this genius project started. Since then, many noisy convoys have traveled over this valley; most recently, the amount of trains has decreased but the same familiar show is repeated daily when passengers or merchandise convoys are crossing the town of Cap-Rouge. The viaduct caused, since his appearance, a lot of various comments sometimes, absolutely conflicting. Unconcerned to fashions and events, it

has been standing in the landscape of the town of Cap-Rouge since the beginning of the century.

Paris has its Eiffel Tower, Rio its Sacré-Coeur, New York its Statue of Liberty, Montréal its cross on the Mont-Royal, Québec its Château Frontenac; well Cap-Rouge is honored by its viaduct whichstands among the longest and highest in the world.

In 1903, Sir Laurier was proposing to the Grand Tronc company, the construction of another transcontinental. In 1899, a private company, directed by William McKenzie and David Mann, created the Canadian Northern Railway Co.

At the time of the construction, this railroad owned a trail in Cap-Rouge; they decided to merge with the Grand Tronc in 1922 to become the Canadian National Railway, now called the CN.

As it is easier to understand now, the Viaduct of Cap-Rouge was a part of what we could call the second transcontinental. As a matter of fact, the Grand-Tronc company, via its affiliate, the Grand Trunk Pacific Railway Co., built the west section of the line, from Winnipeg to Prince-Rupert; while the government, thanks to the National Transcontinental, was building from the East part of Winnipeg to Moncton. Therefore, it was under the authority of the National Transcontinental, that the viaduct was contracted.

BUILDING THE STRUCTURE

During the summer of 1907, the construction was going quickly. The assembling and the bolting of this superstructure, done by the Dominion Bridge, started at the beginning of June 1907 on the pillars already on the site, from the south-west end of the valley towards the north-east. They worked all summer long until the beginning of December 1907. About 2,300 feet of the structure (the 2/3 of it), was then in place. They could not finish in 1907 as planned on the contracts and the collapse of the Quebec Bridge, on August 29, 1907, made the fast completion of the viaduct then useless. After the winter stop, the work restarted in April of 1908. The necessary points would be finished by the summer.

Many years will go by before trains regularly used the viaduct. As a matter of fact, it was useless to have the viaduct finished if the way to get to it did not even exist. The viaduct was a part of the Winnipeg-Moncton section, which the construction was going slowly between 1906 and 1913. The rails were put down between 1908 and 1911 while the other necessary works were gradually going until 1913. The exploration of the biggest part of the railroad started in September 1913. The last clamp on the Winnipeg-Moncton line was put in on November 17, 1913.

What a spectacular show you can have while standing on the church square as you can see a train crossing just above the belfry. I wish you were here on a foggy morning, because at this time, we could swear that the train is crossing the town on the top of the clouds.

Written by Raynald Asselin,

With the collaboration of the Historical Society of Cap-Rouge

DATA SHEET

Length of the steel frame 3,335'

Height of the viaduct:

At low tide 172.96'

At high tide 153.96'

The steel frame only 145'5

Number of Towers 30

Dimension:Top 40' X 10'

Foundation (maximum) 40' X 55'

Space between the towers:

Bridge apron: 27 spans of 60'