The Mont-Saint-Hilaire line was operated by the Grand Trunk Railway (GTR) from 1859 to 1923, and by Canadian National Railway (CN) from 1923 to 1988, following the GTR's merger into CN. There was no commuter train service on the line after 1988 until Exo's predecessor agency, the Agence Métropolitaine de transport (AMT), resumed passenger service in 2000.
There are 7 inbound and 7 outbound departures per weekday.[2] This line does not run on weekends.
The line offers seven departures every weekday morning towards Montreal and seven returns to Saint-Hilaire every weekday evening. It is also the only commuter train line not to have any train stations on the island of Montreal outside of Downtown Montreal. All the other train lines have at least 4 stops before leaving the island.[3]
The trains are owned and managed by Exo, and operated by Alstom's Transportation division (formerly Bombardier Transportation).
Today, over 9,000 people ride this train daily.
History
GTR/CN service
The line was opened by the Grand Trunk in 1859. CN rolling stock in the late 1960s and early 1970s, operated once daily each direction, was a hodgepodge of ca 1930 coaches and an equally eclectic mix of yard switchers, freight and passenger diesel electric engines. Service was suspended in 1988, due to low ridership and old equipment used.
Central Station – Saint-Isidore shuttle service
During the Oka Crisis in the summer of 1990, the Société de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (STCUM) organized a temporary rail shuttle service between Montreal Central Station and the town of Saint-Isidore due to the closure of the Honoré Mercier Bridge during said crisis. That service used part of the present-day Mont-Saint-Hilaire line between Montreal Central Station and Saint-Lambert station via Victoria Bridge, and then branched off to the CN Rouses Point Subdivision towards Saint-Isidore.
AMT service
The Mont-Saint-Hilaire line was re-opened in 2000 (between Montreal Central Station and McMasterville) by the AMT as a measure to mitigate traffic congestion caused by roadwork. Train service was progressively increased to respond to rapidly growing demand. The line was extended to its current terminus at Mont-Saint-Hilaire in 2002.
In May 2018, the RTM rebranded itself as Exo, and rebranded each line with a number and updated colour. The Mont-Saint-Hilaire line became Exo 3, and its line colour was updated to a lighter pastel shade of violet. In 2023, the service was renumbered to line 13 in order to be unique within the Montreal rail network.[4]
Future proposals
In 2019, civic organization Trajectoire Québec proposed several improvements to the Mont-Saint-Hilaire line, which has seen little service changes since the early-2000s. Among such proposals are increasing the frequency of trains to accommodate passengers transferring from South Shore bus services that would no longer directly run to Downtown Montreal following the opening of the Réseau express métropolitain, relocating the Saint-Bruno station closer to residential neighbourhoods and potentially extending passenger service to Saint-Hyacinthe.[5]
List of stations
The following stations are on the Mont-Saint-Hilaire line:
