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; well
Cap-Rouge is honored by its viaduct which stands 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'
32 spans of 40'
1 span of 125'
1 span of 150'
1 span of 160'
Steel weight: 4 288 tons
TOTAL COST: 817 462.73 $
££££££££££££££££££££