NARRATOR (male voice)
In front of us we have the train station, a landmark that played a key role in Québec’s railway history.
In 1853, a few prominent Waterloo citizens formed the Stanstead, Shefford and Chambly Railroad. Their goal was to establish railway connections between the three counties. Five years later, this company inaugurated the first section of the railway in Farnham.
Did you know that the first train to run through Farnham, did so on January 1, 1859?
NARRATOR (female voice)
In 1871, as the city was growing both in size as in importance, local interests created the South-Eastern Railway linking Farnham to Newport, Vermont. Farnham became the company’s headquarters. The railway company proceeded to build a turntable, a train mechanical maintenance workshop and an impressive marshalling yard. In 1873, the Farnham-Newport line was inaugurated by taking three hundred invited guests on a train trip to a civic reception in Newport.
NARRATOR (male voice)
Within a couple of years, Farnham went from being a quiet farming village to a bustling railway town. By 1882, seven railway tracks departed from the town and more than eighteen passenger trains stopped here daily, in addition to the freight convoys that ran at all hours of the day and night.
NARRATOR (female voice)
On the night of February 8 to February 9, 1949, the impressive brick station was destroyed by fire. The following year, the Canadian Pacific Railway built a new train station at the intersection of two railway lines, one running east-west across Canada and the other running north-south from Canada to the United States. The last passenger train operating on the Montréal-Farnham route entered the station in October 1980.