The snow trains were from my parents’ generation. The arrival of the autoroutes in Quebec and interstates in the US virtually killed the snow trains. Ski areas were now more easily accessible with the popularity of automobiles in the North American households and better road network.
Instead of ridding the trains, my generations rode the buses. The bus took over and where more flexible than the trains. A skier growing up in Montreal had great ski options. Laurentians to the North and Eastern Townships and Vermont to the South and East all within an easy day drive. As a teenager too young to drive or without a car, you could have you independence and go skiing without counting on someone with a car. As I recall they were a couple of ski club based in Montreal that would book buses and head to ski destinations each weekend, however you couldn’t use them on PD school days. You also had to give an advance deposit and you weren’t sure if there would be enough people to hold the trip all together.
There was one bus company that would run daily coach services to 2-4 destinations. The Murray Bus company would run buses to Mont St-Sauveur and Mont Tremblant in the Laurentians and Jay Peak and Smuggler’s Notch in Vermont. The schedule had three circuits for the Laurentians and two for Vermont all meeting up shopping centres north or south of the city (Centre Laval for the Laurentians or Centre Portebello on the South Shore for Vermont) where people could potential change bus if there weren’t enough people and the destination would require only one bus.
The Hotel Sheraton Mont-Royal in Downtown Montreal (now where the prestigious Cours Mont-Royal Mall is located) was the base and starting point to many of these routes. Some guests at the Hotel would take advantage of the easy access to skiing, like guests at the Chateau Frontenac in Quebec City. The Hotel was also connected to the underground Metro. I would either take the bus and Metro or got a ride from my mother to the Sheraton in the morning then come back home in my ski equipment full Montreal rush hour, of course that would only be an issue on weekday when I was off from school. In my first two years of keeping track of my Ski Days (1981-82 and 1982-83), I would use the use of the Murray Hill buses would account between half to two-tiers of my ski days of those late High School years. I would generally go with one friend, my High School skiing friend Jean-Pierre was with me on most of these trips. For the record, Jean-Pierre is also the one that got me to started on my ski days record keeping.
This week is the bus schedule for Les excursions Murray Hill for the 1982-83 season (my season was shorten due to an non-skiing injury). Transport and Lift tickets at either Tremblant, Jay or Smuggler’s was a maximum of $24 on weekends or Holidays. A great deal. Murray Hill would also offer transportation for night skiing at Mont St-Sauveur for $14. The minimum requirement was 10 passengers to make the trip happen, but only maybe two trips were canceled and it was only because the bus had to turn around in Vermont or just before the border due to heavy flooding.
The Murray Hill company was bought Groupe Orléans buses in 2009, however I remember the green and white bus from my childhood.
But Murray Hill has been around for a very long time: Many Montrealers grew up seeing Murray Hill coaches, full of tourists, plying the streets of downtown Montreal and Old Montreal. While Murray Hill is no longer a part of Montreal’s urban landscape, it nevertheless continues to provide exceptional quality service to tour operators, companies and individuals who organize group trips.
Click images in order to access larger versions
That’s a great bus ride down memory lane. My early days at Jay Peak were made possible by Murray Hill busses. I was a member of the the Raven Ski Club for about 5 years and my older brother was an instructor. Busses would pick up kids at a variety of locations around Montreal, both downtown and in the suburbs, and transport a horde of hormone-addled teenagers to Jay for 10 Saturdays every winter. I vividly remember people shouting at the driver to slow down as he careened the coach down the 242 on the way home. Lessons were pretty loose and casual. Basically, we got put in a group of similar ability, skied with an instructor but the bottom line was skiing, not standing around. In my last year of Ravens, our group consisted of about four, including Mark the instructor, who still skis at Jay. We went everywhere, trees, chutes, off the ridge, before any of these places were “normal” ski lines. What a great winter!
The Ravens was operated by the Schwab family from Westmount, and eventually stopped operations in Montreal and moved to Toronto. I don’t think it exists anymore. There was another club called the Ski Hawks, which went primarily to Tremblant, I believe. I still have my Ravens toque.
MadPat, do you remember the Great Blizzard of March 1971? It shut down the Island of Montreal for days. My brother, another instructor (who is now an avalanche expert in BC), my buddy Brian and I arrived at the Beaconsfield Shopping Centre to met the bus, only to discover that Ravens had cancelled all busses due to the weather forecast. Always one to seize an opportunity my brother suggested, since we had Dad’s car for the day anyway, that we drive to Tremblant. OK, we all said. We skied deepening powder all day at Tremblant, then spent 9.5 hours driving back to the West Island in the blizzard. Our street hadn’t been plowed when we got home and I walked in snow over my knees to get to the house. Too bad we didn’t have skins then!
I didn’t use the Murray Hills as part of a club, but as an individual. Are you saying your club got on board and didn’t have their own transportation or did they rent the Murray Hill bus for their club? I remember going to Camp Nominingue in the deep northern Laurentians in 1978 and the camp transportation was assured by this bus company.
The name Ski Hawks rings a bell. A great place to get used gear back in the 1970s was at Westmount’s Roslyn High School Sale. I believe I got one or two pairs of ski boots there, at the age when one pair of ski boots would generally only last one year.
I remember the great storm of March 1971, we lived on Fort Street between Sherbrooke and Maisonneuve, 2 blocks east of the Forum. We would eventually move a few blocks West pass Greene Ave closer to school. I was also a bit young, I was 5 1/2 that March. I don’t have any particular skiing memories of skiing that storm, however I remember my mother dragging me on a sled in the middle of St.Catherine Street and me playing in the snow.
Your description of the West Island streets are similar to my memory of Ottawa’s big storm just a few years ago, in March 2008, over 50cm in 24 hours. I have of my crazy day fighting to get at Edelweiss, but I didn’t transfer it onto the blog yet.
I miss snow…odds are pretty low for typical Christmas time fun in the snow with the kid in Ottawa this year.
I assume that the Ravens chartered the MH busses for the club trips. Our parents paid the membership, we showed up and the busses were there. I recall the bus trips you took advantage of but by then my friends and I were driving.
That’s interesting that you went to Nominingue. The camp is still operating and I know the director.
It was a huge Eastern Canada Anglo upper-class thing at the time; my background didn’t fit with some of the selfish early-teen brats that were in our group. Thinking Ted Knight in Caddyshack type.