You can helpexpand this article with text translated fromthe corresponding article in French. (April 2024)Click [show] for important translation instructions. Machine translation, likeDeepL orGoogle Translate, is a useful starting point for translations, but translators must revise errors as necessary and confirm that the translation is accurate, rather than simply copy-pasting machine-translated text into the English Wikipedia. Do not translate text that appears unreliable or low-quality. If possible, verify the text with references provided in the foreign-language article. Youmust providecopyright attribution in theedit summary accompanying your translation by providing aninterlanguage link to the source of your translation. A model attribution edit summary isContent in this edit is translated from the existing French Wikipedia article at [[:fr:Ligne Exo 6 - Deux-Montagnes]]; see its history for attribution. You may also add the template{{Translated|fr|Ligne Exo 6 - Deux-Montagnes}} to thetalk page. For more guidance, seeWikipedia:Translation.

Deux-Montagnes
Line portion betweenCanora andMont-Royal in 2015
Overview
Line number	6
Locale	Greater Montreal
Termini	Central Deux-Montagnes
Stations	12
Website	Exo – Deux-Montagnes line
Service
Type	Commuter rail
System	Exo
Operator(s)	Bombardier
Daily ridership	28,015 (2018)[1]
Ridership	7,284,100 (2018)
History
Opened	1918 (1918)
Closed	December 31, 2020 (2020-12-31)
Technical
Line length	29.9 km (18.6 mi)[2]
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8+1⁄2 in)standard gauge
Electrification	Overhead line, 25 kV 60 Hz AC
Operating speed	105 km/h (65 mph)
Route map Show static map Legend Deux-Montagnes Grand-Moulin Rivière des Mille-Îles Zone 5 Zone 3 Laval-sur-le-Lac Laval-Links Des Prairies siding Sainte-Dorothée Rivière des Prairies Île-Bigras Rivière des Prairies Zone 3 Zone 2 Ste-Genevieve Roxboro-Pierrefonds Sunnybrooke A-ma-Baie Cartierville Bois-Franc Monkland Du Ruisseau Zone 2 Zone 1 Montpellier Mascouche line A-40 Mont-Royal Canora Saint-Jérôme line Mount Royal Tunnel Central Station Bonaventure Mont-Saint-Hilaire line This diagram: view talk edit Show route diagram

Deux-Montagnes (also designatedexo6 and formerlyRed Line) was an electrifiedcommuter rail line inGreater Montreal, Quebec, Canada. It was owned byExo, the organization that operatespublic transport services throughout the Montreal area.

The line was created in 1918 as aCanadian Northern Railway (CNoR) service.Canadian National Railway (CN) ran the line starting in 1923 following the merger of CNoR into CN. CN transferred the Deux-Montagnes Line to theSociété de transport de la communauté urbaine de Montréal (STCUM) on July 1, 1982. The line was refurbished from 1992 to 1995. It was transferred to theRTM's predecessor agency, the Agence Métropolitaine de transport (AMT) on January 1, 1996. The RTM assumed current operation of the line upon its establishment on June 1, 2017. The RTM rebranded its commuter services "exo" in 2018.

On May 11, 2020, service betweenBois-Franc andMontreal Central Station was closed due to the construction ofRéseau express métropolitain (REM).^[3] On December 31, 2020, the Deux-Montagnes line closed permanently in favour of REM service which operates along the same route.^[4]

On November 17, 2025, theDeux-Montagnes branch of the REM officially opened to passenger service, replacing the Exo-6 service.

This line linkedCentral Station in downtown Montreal withDeux-Montagnes to the northwest of theIsland of Montreal.

The line offered frequent service during rush hours (10–30 minute intervals) and hourly service outside rush hours on weekdays. From April 27, 2018, weekend service on the line had been shut down. Prior, there was hourly service on weekends.^[5]

The trains were owned and managed by the RTM and were operated byBombardier Transportation.^[6]

Deux-Montagnes,Roxboro-Pierrefonds, andCentral Station were wheelchair-accessible.^[7]

In 2016, an average of 30,700 people rode this train daily, having almost as many passengers as Montreal's four other commuter railway lines combined. There were 25 inbound and 24 outbound departures each weekday.^[8]

On April 22, 2016, it was announced that the Deux-Montagnes line would be converted from commuter rail to automatedlight metro in 2020, as part of theRéseau express métropolitain network.^[9]

The Deux-Montagnes line was built by theCanadian Northern Railway. While other railways includingCanadian Pacific andGrand Trunk Railway already had prime downtown locations for their terminal stations, Canadian Northern did not, having only a station out of the way on Moreau Street inHochelaga.

In 1910, it was decided that the best way for Canadian Northern to get downtown was to drill their way downtown — throughMont Royal. The construction started at both ends and met halfway through with only an inch difference. In 1918 the electrified (2400 V DCcatenary), double-track 3.2 mi (5.15 km) tunnel was dubbed Montreal's first subway. Because the tunnel is on a steep grade and inadequately ventilated^[10][11] it was decided from the very beginning that the locomotives would be electric. Theventilation shaft is located SW of the intersection of Édouard-Montpetit Boulevard and Vincent-d'Indy Avenue very close to theÉdouard-Montpetit metro station.^[12][13]

Thestructure gauge of the Mount Royal Tunnel limits the height ofbilevel cars to 14 ft 6 in or 4.42 m.^[14]

In order to finance the project, Canadian Northern built a "model city" north of the tunnel, modeled after Washington, D.C. TheTown of Mount-Royal has grown to be an upper-income neighbourhood today. Construction began in 1912 and finished in 1918, opening to little celebration in the midsts of theSpanish Flu pandemic.^[16] The first train was pulled byelectric locomotive #601 (retired as #6711), which left Tunnel Terminal at 8:30 a.m. on October 21, 1918.^{[citation needed]} For the first three years of operation the commuter line ended atBois-Franc station (then Lazard) before a short spur was built in 1921 creatingCartierville station to allow better operations. The station would stay a terminal for a large part of the line services until the end of the CN era. In 1923 the Canadian Northern Railway went bankrupt and was absorbed into what is nowCanadian National. In 1925 commuter service was finally extended toDeux-Montagnes. Tunnel Terminal was replaced byCentral Station in 1943. In 1946 commuter service through the tunnel peaked at 73 trains per day per direction, though a large part of those were on theMontreal North line or terminated at Cartierville station and not Deux-Montagnes.^[17] CN addedelectric multiple units fromCanadian Car and Foundry in 1952.^[18]

In the 1960s, the first plans were announced to renovate the line, whose equipment was 40 years old at the time. First, it was to becomemetroLine 3 (red), but plans were shelved because of the importance to buildLine 4 (yellow) for service toExpo 67.After a ridership peak of 9 million in 1966, ageing equipment, and sharply declining ridership meant the line became unprofitable for CN in the late 60s.^[19] CN attempted to close the line in the 1970s, but their proposals were rejected. The Quebec Ministry of Transport considered using the line for a high-speed connection toMirabel Airport (Transport rapide régional aéroportuaire Montréal Mirabel, 1974) or as the first line of aBART-style regional metro system (Réseau express de Montréal, 1977; Métro régional, 1979). None of these projects progressed beyond the planning stage.

In 1982, management of commuter trains was transferred to the publicly owned Montreal Urban Community Transit Commission (STCUM). The STCUM set fares and schedules, while the Canadian National retained ownership of the equipment (passenger cars and locomotives). CN continued to provide the tracks, stations, storage, maintenance, and train crews needed to keep the line running. For Montreal commuters, the transfer of ownership was positive as the trains were integrated into the bus and metro system, and frequency were increased from 18 departures a day under CN to 28. The change allowed the line ridership to rebound, from a low of 2 million in 1980 to 3.5 million the following year, stabilizing just under 4 by the end of the decade.^[20]

In 1992, the government of Quebec announced a modernisation plan for the line which would include electrifying the entire line at25 kV AC (and converting the existing catenary in the Mont-Royal Tunnel to this voltage), 58 state-of-the-artMR-90electric multiple unit trains built byBombardier Transportation, new tracks, andcentralised traffic control. Service was shut down completely in the summers of 1993, 1994 and 1995 to allow for major work to be done. The last of the oldrolling stock leftCentral Station at 6:30 p.m. on June 2, 1995 – 76 years, 8 months, 11 days, and ten hours after it first went into service. The same locomotive, #6711 (with #6710 (pictured)), hauled the last train through the tunnel.

The line was transferred to the former Agence métropolitaine de transport (AMT) on January 1, 1996.

Eliminating the long-standing East Junction level crossing,CN built a railway overpass to route its Saint-Laurent subdivision over the commuter train line just south ofMontpellier station. The overpass was a prerequisite for increasing commuter train frequencies on the Deux-Montagnes line as well as the commissioning of theMascouche line. The $60 million project was begun in 2010 and was completed by the end of 2013, when the new line also was commissioned.^[21]

On February 28, 2014, the AMT announced that it had purchased the Deux-Montagnes line from CN for a sum of $92 million. While CN owned the line, freight trains could use it within two time windows: during the day from 08:30 to 15:30 and during the night from 20:30 to 05:30. Purchasing the line allowed AMT to give commuter trains priority all day, between 05:30 and 20:30.^[22] This gave the AMT flexibility for scheduling trains and allows it to save rent money in the long term.

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On June 1, 2017, the AMT was dissolved and replaced by two new governing bodies, theAutorité régionale de transport métropolitain (ARTM) and theRéseau de transport métropolitain (RTM). The RTM took over all former AMT services, including this line.

In May 2018, the RTM formally re-branded itself as Exo; and renamed each line with a number and updated colour. The Deux-Montagnes line became Exo 6, and the blue line colour was updated to a light peach colour.

To ease overcrowding and attract new users on the Deux-Montagnes Line, theARTM planned several projects:

• Extending the double track from its current (2020) endpoint at theBois-Franc station to theRoxboro-Pierrefonds station inPierrefonds-Roxboro. Work would include doubling the track over 7.5 km (4.7 mi) parallel to the existing track, rebuilding a small bridge, building a new overpass over the bike path through Bois-de-Liesse park, reconfiguring three level crossings, and adding a second platform at Sunnybrooke station. Construction was to have begun in 2013 and was to be completed by 2015 but as of 2017 work had not begun. Preliminary costs were estimated at $51 million.^[23][24]
• As of 2020, there was a second track from Bois-Franc to slightly pastSaraguay (about halfway between Bois-Franc and Sunnybrooke at theA13), but it was not electrified and was used by CN freight trains serving industries along Doney spur.^[15]

Under theRéseau express métropolitain project, the Deux-Montagnes line was converted to driverlesslight metro operation and extended past Downtown and over the St-Lawrence to Brossard; two southwest branches were also added, toMontreal-Pierre Eliott Trudeau International Airport and to Sainte-Anne-de-Bellevue.^[9] To prepare for the project, service between Bois-Franc and Central Station was ended on May 11, 2020.^[3] On December 31, 2020, the rest of the Deux-Montagnes line closed permanently, six months earlier than previously anticipated due to losing more than 90% of its ridership because of the forced transfer and theCOVID-19 pandemic.^[4]

The following stations were on the Deux-Montagnes line. All of these stations have been refurbished forRéseau express métropolitain service following the Deux-Montagnes line's closure.

The Deux-Montagnes line used the former CNDeux-Montagnes Subdivision between mile 0.8 (Central Station) and 19.4 (Deux-Montagnes). The RTM owned it from 2017 to 2020.^[22]

The line ran through theMount Royal Tunnel, to connect downtown Montreal, to the north side rail subdivision.

Wikimedia Commons has media related toDeux-Montagnes line.

• Official RTM websiteArchived August 5, 2018, at theWayback Machine
• Marc Dufour's website about the Deux Montagnes Line (in French)

• Exo commuter rail lines
• Transport in Laval, Quebec
• Railway lines opened in 1918
• Transport in Laurentides
• 25 kV AC railway electrification
• 1918 establishments in Quebec
• Railway lines closed in 2020

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