Caption: A follow up to an earlier posting on these electric operations.

Canadian National Railway EMU Trailer T4 is now in the lead position waiting to depart Saint Eustache for Gare Centrale in downtown Montreal with a mid-afternoon commuter on a sunny fall day. Date is approximate, as cars were delivered in 1952 and have a few years worth of wear and tear on them. Saint Eustache station (formerly Saint Eustache sur le Lac per a 1945 postcard) would be renamed Deux Montagnes station in 1963, placing this shot about 1960 give or take a few years. This appears to be a mid-afternoon train, and based on the October 1960 CNR timetable, could put it as train 362, departing Saint Eustache at 1330h, or train 364, departing at 1430h. T4 would later become 6743 during the 1969 repainting and renumbering.

In an effort to modernize it’s ageing fleet of wooden commuter cars, CNR ordered eighteen Electric Multiple Unit cars in 1952 from Canadian Car & Foundry, six of these being motors numbered M1 – M6, and the other twelve being trailers, numbered T1 – T12. These would enter service in September 1952, with the motor always leading outbound from Gare Centrale. Further information can be found in this September – October 1952 publication by the CRHA. The EMU sets would be repainted to CN’s black and grey scheme in 1969 and would be renumbered to the 6700 series along with all other Montreal electric motive power. The six motors would become 6730 – 6735, and the trailers 6739 – 6749. Of the eighteen cars, four would not survive to the end of service in 1995. Motors 6731, 6732 would be destroyed by fires in 1994 and circa 1980 respectively, while trailer 6748 would be scrapped due to corrosion in 1993, and trailer T8 was destroyed in a fatal head on collision in 1960.

The CN electric era drew to a close on June 2, 1995 with AMT taking over by the end of the year. Now under the name EXO, the line has been shut down in recent years and all infrastructure removed for rebuilding into the grade separated, driverless REM light rail system. More on this from Michael Berry here (1), and here (2), plus an article from Railfan & Railroad here.

The remaining fourteen cars survive in preservation throughout North America:
Motors 6730, 6733, 6735 and trailer 6746 at the South Carolina Railroad Museum in Winnsboro.
Motor 6734 and trailer 6742 at Exporail.
Trailers 6739, 6743, 6745, 6749 to the Conway Scenic Railroad in North Conway, New Hampshire.
Trailer 6740 to the Alberta Railway Museum in Edmonton.
Trailers 6741, 6744, 6747 to Alberta Prairie Railway Excursions in Stettler.

More EMU:
6731 at Portal Heights, June 1979 by Peter Jobe
6733 at Val Royal, June 1991 by Glenn Courtney
6734 on display at Exporail, April 2018 by Michael Berry
6743 arriving at Mont Royal, July 1977 by John Eull

Truman Hefner Photo, Jacob Patterson Collection Slide.