The Restigouche Freshet and Ice-Jam part 3

Bay Chaleur Railway damaged

        About half a mile below, on the Bay Chaleur Railway, the flood entered the roundhouse and also submerged the track and there were washouts on it further down river and a bridge was destroyed, while all along more or less ice was piled on the track and the intervales..

The Intercolonial Railway

        Which runs along the east side of the Metapedia, on an embankment, for a third of a mile, was considerably damaged, although it cannot be said that there was, properly speaking, a washout there. The line at this place consists of what railway men call a "fill," the west bank of which has a slope down from the track to the river, which at its ordinary level is perhaps, fifteen feet more or less below. On the east side, the slope runs down to a stretch of intervale land, varying from four to ten feet below the level of the rails. AS the water ran up the Metapedia from the Restigouche, as already described, it rose upon the outer embankment, against which the floating ice pounded as it eddied about. Soon it was on a level with the ballast and then began to pour over between the sleepers and, finally, submerged and rose several feet above the rails. The ice boulders, striking these with the force imparted to them by the torrent, which now flowed across the rails to form a basin over the intervales land, forced both rails and sleepers bodily off the track, passing over them in some places and under them in others and depositing them in a twisted form here with the rails downwards, there upwards and elsewhere with the sleepers standing perpendicularly several feet east of and below the level of the roadbed. In ancient tales of war, we are told of routed battalions burning the bridges over which they retreated, and modern military records give us accounts of the overturning of railway tracks to impede the progress of the pursuing enemy, but the removal of the rails with the sleepers from the road-bed of the Intercolonial at Metapedia on Wednesday last was done with a speed which no military organization could hope to approach, while it demonstrated the irresistible potency and effectiveness of nature's forces over the best engineering skill, for the demoralizing of railway communication.

A calamity that was averted

        When it is remembered that while all the destruction referred to was being wrought by the flood near the mouth of the Metapedia, millions of tons of water were being held back in that river by a big ice-dam only about a mile above, one can form a partial idea of how great a calamity was thus averted. Had the Metapedia ice-cam given way and added its contents o the water and ice, which "backed up" into that river from the Restigouche, it is probable that the I.C.R. track between the station and Metapedia snow shed, would have been submerged. If this had happened a washout would have taken place at that spot and a rushing torrent would have gullied out a new channel north of the Restigouche Salmon Club's head house, involving not only the total destruction of Metapedia Village, but every structure and all the cultivated land between that and Bells' Island, below the railway bridge. The Metapedia water, however, held back until that from the Restigouche had begun to recede, after the Bell's Island jam broke, when all ran out without inflicting further damage.

        To be continued......................

        Thanks to Tim Jaques at the Tribune for this very interesting article

• Restigouche GenWeb Site
• Irene Doyle's Family History and Genealogy ++ Site
• Gloucester GenWeb Site