The Halifax-Montreal train is not what it seems. It follows a circuitous route via Rimouski and takes 22.5 hours. It's like running a Toronto-Montreal train via North Bay. The drive is officially just under 12 hours according to Google Maps, and that's with the detour around Maine (i.e. driving 800 km of highway to get from Fredericton to Montreal when they are separated by 500 km of territory). The distance as the crow flies is under 800 km.
It's only a reasonably direct transportation connection for the people living in places like Amqui.
A while back I posted the history of these routes, which was apparently heavily political in the 80's and 90's. The Progressive Conservatives proposed keeping the Saint John route and the Liberals proposed this route through Northern NB.
The Maritimes got seriously shafted by land transportation connections by their neighbours and politics. When you get to edge of NB in the west or north you are on a controlled access divided highway, but cross into Quebec or Maine and you end up on a 2 lane country road. And there is no decent east-west route at all in Maine because they don't care about Canadian traffic. The Maritimes should offer to subsidize better highway routes through Maine.
Last edited by someone123; Jan 24, 2019 at 6:03 PM.
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