Scenic route
Train de Charlevoix
Québec City → La Malbaie · Canada
Train de Charlevoix in pictures


Photographs by their authors, hosted on Wikimedia Commons · tap through for the licence
- Distance
- 140 km
- Fastest time
- 4 h 30 min
- Average speed
- 31 km/h
- Top speed
- 70 km/h
- Operator
- Réseau Charlevoix
- Train
- DB 628 diesel railcars
- Countries
- Canada
- In service since
- 1919
- Runs
- daily early Jun–early Nov
- Riders per year
- ≈ 40k
Figures are published values, not live data · corrections log
Runs 140 km wedged between Laurentian cliffs and the St. Lawrence, at times just metres from the tide.
Railway financier Rodolphe Forget pushed this line along the St. Lawrence’s north shore in 1919, and for most of its 140 km the track has cliff on one side and tidewater on the other. Reborn as a light-railcar tourist service, it was rescued by local operator Réseau Charlevoix and carried some 40,000 riders in its comeback 2025 season. German-built railcars now shuttle from Montmorency Falls past the Le Massif ski cliffs to the old resort town of La Malbaie.
How this line was checked
- Line drawn from OpenStreetMap relation 18254074 — the same nodes OpenStreetMap holds for this railway, thinned to within under 25 m of them
- Checked against OpenStreetMap: 98.8% of this line lies within 250 m of real track, a median 4 m from it
- The operator publishes this line's timetable: the railway’s own site — a place to look it up, not a check of our drawing
- Wikipedia has an article for this line
Along the way
- Montmorency Falls
- Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré basilica
- Cap Tourmente wildlife reserve
- Le Massif cliff descent
- Baie-Saint-Paul
- Murray Bay at La Malbaie
More scenic routes
- Glacier Express
“The world’s slowest express”: 291 bridges, 91 tunnels and the 2,033 m Oberalp Pass at an average of 36 km/h.
Wikipedia ↗ - Bernina Express
A UNESCO World Heritage railway: 7 % grades with no rack, the Brusio spiral, and the highest rail crossing of the Alps at 2,253 m.
Wikipedia ↗ - Bergensbanen
Northern Europe’s highest main line: over the bare Hardangervidda plateau at 1,237 m, through 182 tunnels.
Wikipedia ↗ - West Highland Line
Regularly voted the world’s most scenic railway: around Rannoch Moor and over the 21-arch Glenfinnan Viaduct of film fame.
Wikipedia ↗
More train routes in Canada.