Farnham Railway Center

The imposing Farnham train station, built around 1873, served as both station and headquarters for the South Eastern Railway Company. When the activities of the railway company were integrated with those of the Canadian Pacific Railroad in the late 1880s, the building became the headquarters of the Farnham division of the Canadian Pacific. The square turret that was superimposed on it were removed over time.

This photo of the turntable for the locomotives and the roundhous from 1914.

At the beginning of the 20th century.

This station was built in 1950 to replace the old station destroyed by fire in 1949, as well as because Farnham occupied an essential strategic place on the CP rail network. It was located at the intersection of two railway lines, running east to west across Canada and north to south from Canada to the United States.

The construction of this station coincided with the height of CP's post-war expansion in which the company introduced diesel technology and a new organizational framework. Farnham became the administrative centre of the Eastern Rail network, with a staff of over 500 employees.

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.