On July 12, 1994, the sun was already up when Via Rail's westbound "Atlantic" appeared at the unprotected road crossing just west of mile post 16 on CP Rail's Sherbrooke Subdivision. The time was 06:20 and, Train 11 led by F40PH-2 numbered 6431 and unidentified sister unit, was running about one hour and forty minutes late.
Five months later, on December 16, 1994, Train 11 completed its final trip over these rails. Via Rail's "Atlantic" successor to CPR's "Atlantic Limited" passed into history a second time. The first time was November 1981.
A little more than a month later, CP Rail quit operating over the rails of their former Megantic Subdivision east of Lennoxville, Quebec. Surely this marked the end of an era in Canadian transcontinental railroading.
The small town of Milan, Quebec, (a former station) is slightly more than a mile east of this location. Now undeterminable, locations along this mile of track were the scenes of a family tragedy several generations ago. (Details are in the post titled, "A Rhapsody in Claims")
The Oddblock Station Agent
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