After the service cuts of 1991 VIA Rail found itself with a surplus of equipment that was dumped at various locations across the country. While most of it was disposed of relatively quickly some remained for years before being sold. In the late 1990’s I was invited to visit several locations where VIA stored some of the equipment, including the Toronto Maintenance Centre (TMC) and the Montreal Maintenance Centre (MMC).

My visit to the Montreal Maintenance Centre (MMC) was on April 18, 1998. Having already visited the Toronto Maintenance facility and seen the various old pieces of equipment there I could only imagine what treasures I would find in Montreal and as it turned out I was not to be disappointed.

After travelling to Montreal by train I met my escort at Central station before being taken to Pointe St.Charles. Upon arrival there I was given a safety briefing and told what parts were off limits, due to ongoing activity, as well as what I could or could not photograph. I was not allowed either inside any of the buildings or onto any active track. I could however explore the stored equipment and photograph anything except wrecked coaches (the cars from the Biggar, SK wreck were present at the time).

I initially headed to the yard at eastern end of the building and among the first things I noticed were the former Amtrak LRC cars. Ten cars had been built, eight coaches plus two food service cars, and all ten cars were present, including one still in Amtrak colours. Several were sitting on accommodation trucks from old freight cars and I was told that they had been sold to Tunisia. However it seems that this deal later fell through.

There were also several ex CN blue cars present, including former CP Budd cars that had not been included in the HEP program, ‘E’ series sleepers, food service cars, and ‘EM’ coaches including several that had been leased to the Société de Transport de la Communauté Urbaine de Montréal (STCUM) for commuter services. Parked among the coaches were several locomotives and RDC’s including LRC 6922 sporting a proposed livery on one side that was dark blue with large VIA lettering in the middle. Behind it were two repainted LRC-1 coaches, one in the same shade of blue but with a yellow stripe composed of the word VIA repeated along the length. The other car had the words welcome written in various languages at one end. Also present were several recently retired FP9ARM’s.

I then headed over to the western end of the building and explored the equipment there. While there were some long stored LRC locomotives there were also RDC’s, including a cab less RDC-9 still in CN colours, more old CN blue cars, and a variety of equipment that had been purchased for the HEP program but never used. Unfortunately between the sun angles and the fact that the equipment was parked close together on adjacent sidings photography was limited in this area.

As I left the yard and returned to Central Station I was shown one last interesting piece of equipment, but sadly did not photograph. This was a single flat car owned by VIA that was used for the transportation of large items around the MMC.

While I had missed seeing the majority of the equipment that had be retired in the early 1990’s I was not disappointed by what I did see and was grateful for a chance to visit this interesting facility.