15 September 2006
Outremont Yard Freight Shed to be Demolished
Montreal Quebec - Canadian Pacific Railway
announced today that the demolition of the former freight shed located in
Outremont Yard will begin on 18 Sep 2006. This is the first step in CPR
ending railway-related activities in the yard following the sale of the
property to the Universite de Montreal in March 2006, in order to expand their
campus.
The demolition work will be conducted by the well-respected and
specialist Montreal firm Entreprises de Construction Panzini inc. It is
expected that the demolition work will last approximately 12 weeks and will be
conducted between 07:00 and 17:00, Monday to Friday. The contractor will take
mitigating measures to ensure a minimal disruption to neighbors' quality of
life.
Truck and other vehicular traffic linked to this demolition will use the
yard's north-east entrance, gaining access via Beaubien, Hutchinson and
Durocher Streets. There will not be any additional vehicular traffic on the
borough's residential streets.
Because of the clean nature of the building materials, the contractor
will crush and/or cut the recoverable materials such as the concrete and steel
reinforcing bars and will cover and store the material on-site for eventual
alternate uses. No contaminants have been found during testing of the
construction materials, which allows the materials to be recovered and reused.
At this time, only the freight shed area will be demolished, with the
office building portion located at the east end of the structure left in place
for the use of the yard tenants, the Quebec-Gatineau Railway (QGRY). The QGRY
will continue to use the offices there and its present railway activities
until that company's eventual relocation, at a date which has not yet been
determined.
Questions and comments on this stage of the work can be directed to CPR's
Community Connect Line at 1-800-766-7912.
The 93,000 sq-meter freight shed was built in 1967 and was used as a
loading/unloading and distribution center for cargo coming into and being
shipped from Montreal by businesses and retailers that did not have direct
rail access or which were shipping less-than-a-carload. Built with 100 freight
shed doors and one half-kilometer in length, the shed was equipped with an
electronic system for sorting buggies on a conveyor system. When built, the
shed was one of the most modern on CPR's system for the trans-shipping of
truck/rail car traffic.
Outremont Yard was built in 1891 and its rail vocation has followed the
cyclical peaks and valleys of the railway industry and its direct link to the
Canadian economy. In 1997 CPR sold two of its secondary lines, one to the
Outaouais region and the second to Trois-Rivieres/Quebec City, to Genesee
Rail-One, which then formed the QGRY. This short line railway company uses
Outremont Yard for rail car switching and marshalling cars for interchange
with Canadian Pacific Railway.
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