As a freight railway the main commodities transported are: clay, timber, lumber, cement, woodchips, paper, and peroxide.
[4][5] The railway was to be built along the Saint Lawrence River and was intended to provide service to as far east as Baie-Sainte-Catherine, which was in turn expected to be developed into a major seaport with ice free shipping even in winter.
Rodolphe Forget ran for the House of Commons in 1904 promising voters to extend the QM&C line, which was eventually done.
It required huge investments in time and money: there are two tunnels and 900 bridges and culverts, or an average of one every 165 metres (541 ft).
The hotel building burned down in the fall of 1928 but was rebuilt to designs by John Smith Archibald and reopened in June 1929.
In 1984 the line saw the reintroduction of passenger service when a dinner train known as the Le Tortillard du Saint-Laurent started operating between Quebec and La Malbaie.
[citation needed] The Tortillard du Saint-Laurent dinner train was restarted under another company and ran again in 1995 and 1996 before declaring bankruptcy.
[13] Beginning in September 2011, a new tourist train service began operation along the Charlevoix Railway between Quebec City and La Malbaie.