Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts Station
The rail connection used for tourism development
A distinctive architecture
While the train reached the village in 1892, the station was only built in 1902, on Rue Demontigny, before being relocated to its current location and expanded in 1913. Two years later, the village of Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts became a municipality.
A posthumous victory for Curé Labelle
Though Curé Labelle had quite the hard head and never ran out of ways to convince people to support his projects, he would have been delighted in this new victory when the train arrived in Sainte-Agathe-des-Monts, although unfortunately he had passed two years before that happened.
“When I see the statistic that Quebec spends nearly eight million on intoxicating liquors, should I not be able to hope that we can find $25,000 per year to promote colonialism, our sole saving grace?”
- Curé Labelle
A heritage railway station
Road improvements led to a decrease in railway activity between Montreal and Mont-Laurier, and service was discontinued in 1960. It resumed in 1978, but use of the railroad was permanently discontinued in 1981 for passengers, and in 1989 for the transportation of goods. The rails were dismantled starting in 1991, and the building was designated a “Heritage Railway Station” by the government of Canada.
A new calling
The government of Quebec acquired the former railroad footprint between Saint-Jérôme and Mont-Laurier in 1994, in order to create the recreation and tourism corridor of the P’tit Train du Nord, officially inaugurated in 1996. The former station was thus restored and became an information centre for visitors and users of the cycle path, to which a small museum of local history was annexed in 2005.
On October 14, 2008, the station was severely damaged by fire, then restored and reopened on June 28, 2010.
OPENING HOURS
Open year-round from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.