Canadian Railroads > Dartmouth's Changing Waterfront

A while ago I posted some before and after pictures of the shoreline north of Dartmouth in Halifax Harbour.  Here are some more from the south (railway east) side.

South of downtown Dartmouth and the ferry to Halifax, is an area known as Dartmouth Cove.  It was home to a ship repair facility, Dominion Diving, the Coast Guard base, and farther south, the Imperial Oil refinery.  CN's Dartmouth Sub ran through all of this, mostly right at the water's edge, but the Harbour Cleanup project meant a large collector pipe was buried next to the track, and a sewage treatment plant built just south of the old Coast Guard base.  This newly created land now even supports a walking and biking trail, with official pedestrian crossings, over part of its length.

In the first image, from March 23, 2000 GP9RM 4137 is leading a train of propane tankers and autoracks east next to Dartmouth Cove in the morning.  On October 4 of the same year, the train was returning (traveling west) from Autoport in the afternoon.  Finally, on the afternoon of February 17, 2018, I'm standing on the recently in-filled land to shoot the train (now known as 509) as it rumbles eastward at 10 mph.  Everything east of Tufts Cove (mile 11) on the Dartmouth Sub is rule 105 territory (essentially yard limits), but giving the job a number allows management to reassign the crew to some other task, rather than just working the yard.

GTD

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Great photos !!!
Just wondering when they closed down the " Imperial oil refinery" ?
I sailed for "Shell " out of Montreal on the  "M.V. Northern Shell " between 1980 to 1987 and we made a few trips into Dartmouth a few times when I was working on her.
The "crew" loved going down east!!! Some great bars among other things to do there!! :):):)
Is the refinery still used as a "tank farm" for finished prooducts ?
Thank you for bringing back those old memories...:):):)

There used to be two refineries on the Dartmouth side, the Imperial Oil (Esso) and a smaller Texaco.  After Texaco lost the lawsuit to Pennzoil, it became an Ultramar  property.  The Ultramar refinery went first.  Even the Imperial refinery was amongst the smallest in the country, and just became uneconomical to operate.  Both companies (Ultramar is now Valero) still operate tank farms, but refined product comes in by ship.

When crude oil by rail was a thing, Imperial set up an unloading facility, but I don't think it was ever used.  Likewise, the only product that travels by rail these days is propane and asphalt (sort of at opposite ends of the crude oil spectrum).  Years ago, Irving had a network of bulk plants served by coastal tankers.  The old story goes that even if they only needed five tanks, they put in six, so they could spell out I-R-V-I-N-G on them.  Esso seemed to prefer delivering product to their bulk plants by rail.  They are all gone now, but still fenced off with test wells to measure residual leakage.

GTD



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/13/20 06:17 by cn6218.

Wow! Your first photo might be the most arresting shot of a GP9RM I've ever seen, Geoff. Great angle!
Fred

My favorite is Pic 3!!