Canadian Railroads > Narrow guage short line, ASARCO Newfoundland

The railways of Newfoundland were built to a track guage of 3 foot 6 inches, a common rail guage in the former British Empire.
Newfoundland was a British colony until it joined Canada in 1949.

The Buchans Mine Railway connected to the CN at Badger, Newfoundland and ran 72kms to the mining town of Buchans where ASARCO operated a copper mine from 1927 to 1984. Ore from the mine was carried to interchange at Badger and handled by the CN to Bishops Falls where it interchanged with another shortline, the Grand Falls Central, which carried the ore, plus pulp and paper products to Botwood Harbour and a ship to the rest of North America.

The ASARCO Railway used Whitcomb diesels, and a pair of centre cabs are shown in these images handling a short ore train. Note also the fuel oil cars for transporting fuel from Botwood Harbour to the mine and town.

Asarco used former Newfoundland Railway cabooses, which in turn were converted boxcars without cupola or bay windows.

The mine railway ran across the top of a power dam close to the Buchans townsite

Another Whitcomb was stored in a shed at Buchans. The train crew obliged us by pulling it out of the shed for us to photograph.

The station and water plug at Buchans were little changed from steam days.

The Buchans Mine Railway had this cabless wedge plow.

ASARCO stands for American Smelting and Refining Company.

Images are from May, 1975

Great photos.

I am modeling part of this railway.

We had the ore car (wiggly jiggly) produced in Sn42 scale. I have 18 of them.

Looking to get the special van they had built out of a boxcar done up.

Just working on getting a few good angles.

The little ore cars travelled on CN. The name wiggly jigglies came from they used to bounce around if you ever seen them go by. After a few derailments CN put a restriction on the cars. No more than 25mph if these cars were in the consist and had to be marshalled next to the Van.

Now if we can get some Grand Falls Central Railway photos.........

Andrew

I was stationed in the US Navy at Agentia, Newfoundland in the mid-fifties and I remember the railroad came to the navel base there. It was steam powered then and ran to St. Johns. If I recall correctly the service was not too reliable.