Rolly Martin Country: STM (MTC) 1966 Let's take the Metro!

You call this a train?! A veteran of steam fantrips - even a doubleheader - and Budd cars to Lachute & Lac Saguay, the 9-year-old was not impressed by the new Metro. LC Gagnon picked up this pamphlet (reproduced below) around the time he took me to one or two CRHA meetings which, I am guessing, were held in rooms at McGill.

At one point, we were in a small lecture room with stepped seating. A cool older kid in a leather jacket, down and to the right, was studying the back of the first Monkees album. It showed photos of the four band members and a little bit of their personal data. While I was destined to receive that album at Christmas, I sensed that 'coolness' we elude me.

Perhaps it was later in that meeting that we were ushered into a smaller dark (and hot) room. Dr RVV Nichols - if he was not 'cool', he was certainly dynamic in a lecture - was giving us a presentation on CPR's Jubilee class steam locomotives. Did I mention it was dark, and hot? I kept nodding off.

At my tender age, I was already chauvinistic in my appreciation of only 'proper' steam locomotives like those I'd ridden behind: the 5107, 6153, 6167 and 6218. The semi-streamlined look didn't impress me. As an adult, it is surely my failing that I still don't love the Jubilees ... which would just slip and bend a rod if they ever had to reverse a proper fantrip consist of opening-window heavyweights on a wye.

I am certain my father coordinated the ride on the new Metro with one of those CRHA meetings. We would have left the car at home with my mother and my two younger siblings, and gone into Montreal by the MTC. We would have forsaken a perfectly good bus to go out of our way to have our first short Metro ride.

... I had a lot of railfan prejudices, some of which prevented me from properly appreciating my first ride on the Metro: No flanged steel wheels on steel rails, no locomotive to admire ... even the steep grade of the 'track' screamed 'not a real train'. The cars rocked and rolled against each other like a wayfreight fantrip to Hemmingford, with none of the latter's redeeming qualities.

But ... I was really impressed by the acceleration! The most Gs my bottom had ever pulled had been in the family VW Beetle with my mother driving. I'd never been on an amusement park ride. The acceleration was really something unusual and startling.

* * *

From many return visits to Montreal I've developed a real love for the Metro and its particular type of guided ground transit technology. There is no other public transit system I'd rather ride. As an adult, the Metro has taken me to some fantastic, memorable cultural experiences in French - something I'd never have foreseen in 1966.

The 16 x 12 inch pamphlet reproduced below is from October 1966. Is the gentleman of the stock art off to the club after a fox hunt? Oh well, the social momentum of the Révolution tranquille will continue to sort things out ...

Tally Ho! To Toronto! We shall ride upon the GO!

To help readers imagine the scene historically, there are some photos below from my father's Canadian Rail magazines from the preceding months. At the end is a link to a short Pathé newsreel about the Metro's opening.

Regarding the pamphlet: There are two separate Let's take the Metro! ... Prenons le Metro! panels which were inverted against each other covering one side of the pamphlet sheet. So the outside of the folded-up sheet could be displayed as French or English ... Sorry, you have to pick a side.

On the reverse of the pamphlet sheet is a large central map with information strips on each side. This 16 x 12 inch sheet is fully reproduced as one image in a large format below ... to make it easy to download and save ... in case detail on the supporting bus routes etc is someday of interest to students of history/urban planning etc.