Unbeknownst to many of us (not me - Chimples) the train tunnel under Mount Royal dug one century ago came close to becoming just one of many tunnels for an entire transportation network that would have offered service to 15 other towns in the mid-60s at a cost of $2 million per mile dug.St. Laurent, Pierrefonds, Roxboro, DDO were the only ones to survive in the scaled-down version of the plan proposed in 1965 however.
By that time CNR chief Donald Gordon was clearly running out of patience and probably suspected that deep down, nobody dug the plan.
There were about 10,000 people taking the train daily in the mid-60s and the plan aimed to raise that to 40,000. Nowadays 30,000 take the train daily. There was some recent grumbling that being buried so far beneath the surface of the mountain makes it hard to create escape routes in case of emergency.