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Up the Gatineau! Articles

The following article was first published in Up the Gatineau! Volume 47.

A Train Station on the Move

by RJ Hughes

A Train Station on the Move
A postcard of the first train station at Cascades, with upstairs living quarters and attractive finials gracing its roof. Built in 1891, it was destroyed by fire in 1910. Collection of Geraldine Fournier. GVHS 01430/10.

The handwritten note on the back of the postcard reads, “Cascades Station burned to the ground Mar 3rd 1910.” A raging fire had consumed the attractive Victorian-style train station near the west shore of the Gatineau River in the municipality of West Hull (now Chelsea).

The station had been constructed in 1891, just before train service started on the new Ottawa & Gatineau Valley Railway line running along the Gatineau River to Wakefield (and later extended to Maniwaki). We can assume that the construction of its replacement started immediately, given this was the height of Cascades village’s era as a cottage destination. It was also a busy site of commerce, as evidenced by the two sidings off its main line track, used for loading the area’s rich resources: firewood, livestock, mica, wool, farm produce and whatever else they could sell.

A Train Station on the Move
The second Cascades station is a single-storey building, with extended eaves around the entire building. This is the scene looking north. 1914. Credit: J. W. Heckman, of the CPR engineering department. CP A21228, Bytown Railway Society Archives. GVHS 00880/7.
A Train Station on the Move
The same station viewed looking south. Circa 1924. These photos show the building’s location before it was relocated to higher ground in advance of the flooding of the Gatineau River in the mid-1920s for a hydroelectric project. Collection of Lillian Walton. GVHS 02283.137/25.

When the second, more modest, station was built, CP owned the railway line. The new station was single storey; next to it was a house for the section foreman. There the station remained for the next decade and a half, until the preparations for the raising of the Gatineau River water levels in 1926 for a massive hydroelectric project.

The flooding of the river meant that the tracks running through the village of Cascades, along with the station, had to be moved to higher ground. The station ended up about a mile north of its original site.1 Bytown Railway Society historian Philip Jago posted on social media2 that “Railway-wise, Cascades would have been a busy little spot. It had the water tank plus its location relative to Chelsea and Wakefield, which suggests that a section gang was probably based out of there since a typical section was about 8-miles in length.”

I was in that station only once or twice, and I recall half of the building was used for parcel pick up and was otherwise locked. The other half had benches and a pot-bellied stove for the use of waiting passengers.

A Train Station on the Move
Looking south at the station on its post-flood site, north of its former location. The water tower, used for the steam engines of the day, was installed in 1929. It replaced one that had been located at Wakefield. Less visible is a little building housing the “putt-putt,” a small motorized track maintenance vehicle that railroaders called a “speeder.” Also note the empty boxcars on the siding off the main line. Circa 1955. Collection of John Sudbury. GVHS 02437.016/34.

The train station sat in its new spot for the next 35 years or so, until CP cut its passenger service to Maniwaki in January 1963. The station was retired and sold to the highest bidder, Farm Point farmer Homer Cross,3 for (reportedly) $50. I believe Homer once told me he had won the bid by a difference of one dollar.

Homer Cross prepared the station for its big move to Farm Point. His son Mervin and his cousin Leslie Cross hand-jacked and blocked the structure, in readiness for brothers Ebeart and Lloyd Morrison, with Clifford Trowsse’s help, to back a flatbed trailer underneath it. They managed to keep the station in one piece! It was carefully driven around the rock abutment at the Cascades railway crossing, up River Road to Farm Point, left on St. Clement Road past the church, and on up the steep hill to the Cross farm. I would have loved to have been present for this journey. I’ll have to wait to see photos, which are no doubt somewhere in the hills and will show up some day.

For many years Homer Cross used one side of the repurposed station as a granary and the other as a tool shed. The granary side shows evidence of that; sheet metal was added to inside joints of floors and walls, and the outside east wall was braced with a steel plate to resist the pressure of the oats bulging out the wall. The windows had been covered in plywood on that side, and the only remaining original window was the one that faced west.

A Train Station on the Move
The former Cascades station on the Cross farm in Chelsea’s Meech Creek Valley. Circa 2000. GVHS 01671/13.

In 1994, David Cross (the son of Homer’s son Lawrence) acquired the property from his grandfather’s estate. David carefully conserved the former train station, replacing the granary-side windows with ones of similar vintage to restore the look of the building. He repaired the roof and removed the top of the chimney to eliminate water infiltration. The cedar shakes on the west-facing outside wall were replaced as a result of the effects of the sun, and the building was re-stained at least three times.

The station sat proudly perched on a hillcrest in Farm Point for over half a century, while Autoroute 5 was constructed nearby and commercial development crept closer. But its travelling days hadn’t ended yet.

A Train Station on the Move
Contributor RJ Hughes examining the Cascades train station at the former Cross farm, before its move. Credit: Adrienne Herron. GVHS 03009.012/57.

In November 2018, David Cross sold his farm property, including the house and its outbuildings, to a developer. Shortly after, it changed hands again, to a second developer. In early 2021, this new owner agreed to donate the historical train station to the municipality of Chelsea, on condition it be moved quickly in preparation for the commercial development of the land.

Successful grassroots fundraising by the Voie Verte Chelsea group covered the costs of moving the station. The move took place in April 2021, and the vision is to repurpose it as part of a railway history interpretation centre.

Imagine how many thousands of people have passed by the little Cascades train station over its 111-year-old existence, as it migrated from spot to spot. I hope the sight of it brings joy to future generations wherever its next home is.

A Train Station on the Move

 
A Train Station on the Move
A Train Station on the Move


 A few of the station’s surviving features. March 2021. Credit: Adrienne Herron. GVHS 03009.013/57, GVHS 03009.014/57 and GVHS 03009.015/57.

Footnotes

  1. This new site later became the main location for the 1999 Pierce Brosnan film Grey Owl.
  2. Gatineau Valley Historical Society, “Cascades 1926,” Facebook, February 26, 2021. Comment by Philip Jago related to GVHS 03008.008/57. www.facebook.com/Gatineau-Valley-Historical-Society-810653888950823.
  3. Homer Cross (1908–1987) worked this farm, near the Farm Point IGA, for many years. The land was once part of the original William Baldwin homestead in the Meech Creek Valley. The Cross family bought the farm from the Baldwins.

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