Category Archives: Rail Transit

Launch events for Montreal’s REM trains

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Montreal’s Réseau express métropolitain (REM) is an automated rail system.  (Technically a high-floor light metro, using Alstom Metropolis trains.)

The segment from Gare Centrale to Brossard will enter into service on July 31, 2023.

Before that there are launch events starting Friday July 28, including the opportunity to ride the trains for free on the weekend (July 29-30).

  • Friday July 28th: Live ceremony from 9 a.m. to 12 p.m. (Click here to register)
  • Weekend of July 29th-30th: free open house for the general public from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.
  • Monday July 31st: official commissioning 

While the planned REM network is much larger, here’s a map of the segment launching on July 31st, based on REM’s Network map.

Montreal REM launch network map

Getting there from Ottawa

VIA from Ottawa Station to Montreal’s Gare Centrale would be the rail-friendly route.  The VIA station’s name on Ottawa’s OC Transpo transit network is Tremblay.

Why you can’t get there quickly on an all-train central station route from Ottawa.

  • Ottawa’s Line 2 train is replaced by buses until it reopens in Stage 2 in late 2023
  • Ottawa’s Line 1 train is replaced by R1 buses until the train is certified safe to operate, with a target of July 31, 2023
  • Ottawa’s central Union Station was closed in 1966.  It will never be a train station again.  It is temporarily the Senate of Canada Building.
  • Canada’s passenger railway VIA rail operates on privatized tracks owned by the privatized CN freight rail company, and freight trains have priority over VIA trains.  The earliest there might be a slightly better service is the mid-2030s, if multiple steps of approvals, procurement, funding and construction are repeatedly successful across over a decade.