Cartier Railway

The Cartier Railway is a privately owned railway that operates 260 miles (416 km) of track in the Canadian province of Québec. It is operated by the Cartier Railway Company, a wholly owned subsidiary of Arcelor Mittal, formerly Québec Cartier Mining Company. The railway connects the company's massive iron ore mine at Mont-Wright in Northeastern Québec with the company's processing plant and port at Port Cartier, formerly Shelter Bay, which is located on the northern banks of the St. Lawrence River.

The Cartier Railway has 26 locomotives, over 950 ore cars, 300 utility cars, and various other pieces of maintenance equipment. The railroad, along with other Northeastern Québec railways, including the Tshiuetin Rail Transportation line, the Quebec North Shore and Labrador Railway and the Arnaud Railway is completely isolated from any other railroad network in North America. Although the other 3 railroads connect to each other, they don't have any connections to this railroad at all, making this one completely 100% isolated from any other railroads.

Beginnings

In 1958, United States Steel formed the Québec Cartier Mining Company to construct an iron-ore mine in the iron-rich Quebec-Labrador Trough, a long band which cuts through the vast Canadian Shield. Earlier exploration by mine geologists discovered a large deposit in the Trough near Lac Jeannine, about 186 miles (300 km) north of the small town of Shelter Bay, which was located on the northern...
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