Haunted Montreal Blog #106 – Montreal’s Haunted Metro System

Welcome to the one hundred and sixth installment of the Haunted Montreal Blog!

With over 500 documented ghost stories, Montreal is easily the most haunted city in Canada, if not all of North America. Haunted Montreal dedicates itself to researching these paranormal tales, and the Haunted Montreal Blog unveils a newly researched Montreal ghost story on the 13th of every month!

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With the summer fast approaching, Haunted Montreal is open for business with a whole new season of ghost tours and haunted experiences!

Our newest experience is a paranormal investigation into Colonial Old Montreal!

Details in the Company News section below! We also have a paranormal investigation at the old Sainte-Antione Cholera Cemetery!

Our other ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain! To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

Our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Private tours for all of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour. These tours start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people. Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

This month we examine Montreal’s Haunted metro system. With decades of service, the network has witnessed countless tragedies and is now rumored to host ghosts and paranormal activity, especially at three distinct stations.

Haunted Research

Montreal’s sprawling Metro system is well known for its architecture, public art works and ability to move people quickly around the city. However, lesser known are the hauntings and paranormal activity that plague the network. With a long history of deaths from construction accidents, fires, violent acts, electrocution and suicides, the Montreal Metro hosts lingering spirits and other deranged mysteries. 

Construction of the underground network began in 1962 under Mayor Jean Drapeau’s administration.

His goal was to have it ready for the World’s Fair of 1967. When the metro opened on October 14, 1966, it featured 22 stations on two lines.

The system has since expanded to four lines with a total of 68 stations.

Operated by the Société de transport de Montréal (STM), the metro has witnessed all sorts of tragedies over the years. It’s no wonder so many people believe the network is haunted.

Perhaps inspired by its paranormal tales, author Glen Munro wrote The Haunting of Montreal’s Metro in 2023. Billed as a piece of fiction for adolescent readers, the story is centered around various haunted activities in Montreal’s metro system that are seriously disrupting the city. 

Munro writes: “Beneath the vibrant cityscape of Montreal, where history whispers from every corner, a chilling presence has taken hold. The Metro, a lifeline pulsing beneath cobbled streets, now echoes with tales of the supernatural. As the line between myth and reality blurs, the city’s heartbeat falters under the weight of spectral secrets.”

In the story, Paige Investigations, a team of paranormal investigators from Seattle, is invited by Montreal’s mayor to try and resolve the various hauntings in the metro.

According to Munro: “As the team descends into the subterranean labyrinth, they are met with more than just ghostly apparitions. Unexplained phenomena challenge their senses, and the very fabric of reality seems to warp around them. With each step deeper into the Metro’s shadowy depths, they uncover layers of history that refuse to stay buried.”

The novel is fast-paced and highlights various hauntings, ghosts and paranormal events in Montreal’s metro system. While Munro is gifted with an active imagination, one wonders whether or not his fiction is rooted in seeds of truth.

There is no doubt that Montreal’s metro can be terrifying at times. Indeed, MTL Blog ranked the scariest metro stations in Montreal on a scale of 1 to 10. The most frightening is Frontenac Metro on the Green Line with a score of 10/10. Runners up include Snowdon (9.5/10) and Bonaventure (9/10). 

Haunted Montreal has also heard first-hand accounts of paranormal activity at several stations, including Laurier, Berri-UQAM and Frontenac.

Before examining the three allegedly haunted stations, delving into the history of tragedy in the metro network may provide some clues into the hauntings.

For example, nine workers died and dozens more were injured during construction of Montreal’s metro system.

Workers were killed by explosions, when struck by cranes or earth-movers, during cave-ins and by falling from platforms. 

Since the network opened, there have been many more deaths and injuries. For example, the coroner’s office investigated 129 suicides in the Montreal Metro from 1986 to 1996.

There have been many more jumpers since, causing serious delays and leaving metro drivers, paramedics, STM staff and other commenters traumatized and often diagnosed with PTSD.

There have also been a lot of deaths caused by accidents. The worst occurred on December 9, 1971. That evening, metro driver Gérard Maccarone accidentally ran into a parked train at the Henri-Bourassa metro garage. A fire bust out after the collision and Maccarone was unable to extricate himself from the damaged car. Despite his pleas for help, he died of smoke inhalation.

The fire raged for 19 hours in the tunnel and several firefighters and police officers were injured extinguishing the blaze. Damage to the metro cars and tunnel was also extensive.

Other accidents have been caused by people falling onto the tracks. In April 2013, a young woman died because she may have been distracted by her cellphone. CCTV footage showed her wearing headphones and staring into her smartphone before she stepped into a gap between two cars, falling onto the railway. The poor woman was dragged by the metro for two stops before commuters noticed blood on the tracks and the system was shut down.

In January 2014, a man was clipped by a Metro car at Langelier station. Radil Hebrich, 59, had been drinking and stumbled across the yellow warning line at the edge of the platform. He was hit in the head by the side of a passing train and then fell onto the quay.

Despite bleeding profusely, nobody in the station attempted to help him. Indeed, three metro cars passed as he lay on the platform in a pool of his own blood. Hebrich wasn’t attended to by paramedics until almost 20 minutes had passed.

He died shortly thereafter.

In another case, on February 13, 2020, A severely intoxicated 20-year-old man died after falling off the platform and onto the tracks in Beaubien Station on the Orange Line. 

Other accidents have occurred on the escalators. On January 30, 2014, a woman was strangled to death at Fabre Metro after her scarf got caught in the escalator as she was descending it to reach the platform. According to the coroner’s report, Rharouity’s scarf, coat and hair got stuck in the escalator. The report concluded: “The woman was strangled by her scarf and her scalp was lacerated by the teeth of the escalator before the machine stopped”.

Many more people have also died in the metro system from medical problems, criminal assaults, electrocution and drug overdoses. With such a lengthy and diverse history of tragedy, it is no wonder Montreal’s metro system is reported to be haunted.

Returning to the three allegedly haunted stations, Laurier on the Orange Line is perhaps the most well-known. Inside the station on one of the platforms are the infamous “Laurier Ghost Seats”. Imprinted on the granite walls behind them appear to be the faint images of five ghosts.

Who these ghosts are and why they are sitting on the seats on the Laurier Metro platform is a topic of much speculation with no clear answers. 

It is worth noting that skeptics and detractors feel that these are not ghosts at all, but rather stains caused by the grease from the heads of countless passengers who lean against the wall while waiting for their train.

This theory begs the question as to why STM janitors have consistently failed to clean the wall behind the ghost seats.

The second station reported to be haunted is Berri-UQAM. This station is unique in that it is the only one that connects three different lines: the Orange, Green and Yellow. It is a very busy station with a lot of transfers. It is also the most crime-ridden of stations, with hundreds of muggings, violent assaults, various types of theft, vandalism and graffiti occurring every year.

The most common ghost at Berri-UQAM is that of a man wearing a hard hat who sometimes appears in the southern tunnel of the Orange Line. Train drivers who spot the man usually pull the brakes in hopes of not running him over. As the metro screeches towards the man on the tracks, he suddenly vanishes, leaving drivers upset and passengers rattled by the hard braking. 

Many suspect that the ghost is a young construction worker named Jean Bérubé who died around 10 am on November 17, 1964. Then known as Berri-de-Montigny Station, he perished after falling 30 feet from a platform during construction work.

Bérubé was only 19 and worked for Dufresne Engineering.

The final station and allegedly the most haunted of the three is Frontenac on the Green Line. There are occasional reports of disembodied screams echoing through the station that leave commuters disturbed. Furthermore, Haunted Montreal has received pictures of the station with orbs floating around the platforms and in the tunnels.

Furthermore, one person claimed that she stopped using Frontenac Station after several incidents where she felt that something invisible was pushing her towards the tracks every time a train approached.

These paranormal activities may be related to the worst accident during the construction of the Montreal metro system.  On September 11, 1964, a huge explosion ripped through Frontenac metro station at around noon.

A driller named Roger Roy had mistakenly hit a switch box, causing live wires to fall onto a magazine containing around 300 sticks of dynamite. Unfortunately, the explosion resulted in three deaths, including Roger Roy, Albert Hubert and Steve Filycsyk.

There were also five serious injuries, including a supervisor named William Allen who was hurled about 100 feet from the blast but miraculously survived. 

There are many other mysteries in the Montreal Metro Network, such as STATION 69, which is used for training purposes and is not accessible to the public. There are also reports of a “ghost train” that rolls at night, emitting blue flashes as it zips through the tunnels.

With is dark history of death, tragedy, hauntings and paranormal activity, Montreal’s metro system is not for the faint-hearted. Enter at your own risk!

Where to get help:

Canada Suicide Prevention Service

Toll-free 1-833-456-4566

Text: 45645

Chat: crisisservicescanada.ca

In French: Association québécoise de prévention du suicide: 1-866-APPELLE (1-866-277-3553)

Kids Help Phone: 1-800-668-6868 (Phone), Live Chat counselling at www.kidshelpphone.ca

Canadian Association for Suicide Prevention: Find a 24-hour crisis centre

Company News

With the summer approaching fast, Haunted Montreal is open for business with a whole new season of ghost tours and haunted experiences!

We are pleased to announce our newest experience – a paranormal investigation in Old Montreal!

Hosted by one of Montreal’s top paranormal investigators, Dominique Desormeaux, this experience delves into the spirits haunting Old Montreal from the colonial era. These ghosts include those executed by Jesuit priests, French authorities and British prison wardens, among with many others who died tragically in the colony.

Our other ghost tours include Haunted Old Montreal, Griffintown, Downtown and the mountain! To learn more, see the schedule at the bottom of our home page!

In the meantime, our Haunted Pub Crawl is offered every Sunday at 3 pm in English. For tours in French, these happen on the last Sunday of every month at 4 pm.

Private tours for any of our experiences (including outdoor tours) can be booked at any time based on the availability of our actors. Clients can request any date, time, language and operating tour.

These tours are based on the availability of our actors and start at $215 for small groups of up to 7 people.

Email info@hauntedmontreal.com to book a private tour!

You can also bring the Haunted Montreal experience to your office party, house, school or event by booking one of our Travelling Ghost Storytellers today.

Hear some of the spookiest tales from our tours and our blog told by a professional actor and storyteller. You provide the venue, we provide the stories and storyteller. Find out more and then contact info@hauntedmontreal.com

Our team also releases videos every second Saturday, in both languages, of ghost stories from the Haunted Montreal Blog. Hosted by Holly Rhiannon (in English) and Dr. Mab (in French), this initiative is sure to please ghost story fans!

Please like, subscribe and hit the bell!

In other news, if you want to send someone a haunted experience as a gift, you certainly can! We are offering Haunted Montreal Gift Certificates through our website and redeemable via Eventbrite for any of our in-person or virtual events (no expiration date).

Finally, we have an online store for those interested in Haunted Montreal merchandise. We are selling t-shirts, magnets, sweatshirts (for those haunted fall and winter nights) and mugs with both the Haunted Montreal logo and our tour imagery.

Purchases can be ordered through our online store.

Haunted Montreal has temporarily altered its blog experience due to a commitment on a big writing project! New stories at the Haunted Montreal Blog will now be offered every two months, whereas every other month will feature an update to an old story. As always, these stories and updates will be released on the 13th of every month!

Haunted Montreal would like to thank all our clients who attended a ghost walk, haunted pub crawl, paranormal investigation or virtual event!

If you enjoyed the experience, we encourage you to write a review on our Tripadvisor page, something that really helps Haunted Montreal to market its tours.

Lastly, if you would like to receive the Haunted Montreal Blog on the 13th of every month, please sign up to our mailing list.

Coming up on July 13: Update on The Dawson Site

The Dawson Site is one of Montreal’s biggest mysteries. Unearthed in 1860 by geologist William Dawson, the archaeological dig revealed the remnants of an Indigenous village lurking just below the streets of the city. In 2016, an earth-digger on Peel and Sherbrooke Streets cut through the remains of a Mohawk chief, putting a halt to construction and allegedly triggering paranormal activity. Between 2016 and 2019, archaeologists discovered over 2000 artefacts. The unearthing also inspired Tsi niion kwarihò:ten, a series of locations along Peel Street depicting Indigenous and non-Indigenous perspectives during the colonial era through bronze spheres featuring various themes.

Author:

Donovan King is a postcolonial historian, teacher, tour guide and professional actor. As the founder of Haunted Montreal, he combines his skills to create the best possible Montreal ghost stories, in both writing and theatrical performance. King holds a DEC (Professional Theatre Acting, John Abbott College), BFA (Drama-in-Education, Concordia), B.Ed (History and English Teaching, McGill), MFA (Theatre Studies, University of Calgary) and ACS (Montreal Tourist Guide, Institut de tourisme et d’hôtellerie du Québec). He is also a certified Montreal Destination Specialist.

Translator (into French):

Claude Chevalot holds a master’s degree in applied linguistics from McGill University. She is a writer, editor and translator. For more than 15 years, she has devoted herself almost exclusively to literary translation and to the translation of texts on current and contemporary art.