Canadian Railroads > The Other Nova Scotia Gypsum Train

There seems to be a lot of gypsum buried under Nova Scotia.  The world's largest open pit gypsum mine is in East Milford, and there have been various other ones over the years, including the two in the Windsor area served by the Windsor & Hantsport, along with numerous mines in Cape Breton and Antigonish County.  The big one at East Milford, owned by National Gypsum, sends most of its production to the US by sea in bulk carriers.  But for the last dozen years or so, gondolas of the white rock have been going to two different wallboard plants in New Brunswick, one in McAdam, and the other at the old Saint John Shipyard.  Gypsum is also trucked to a smaller wallboard plant in Pt. Tupper, which used to be supplied by mines in that area of Cape Breton.

The New Brunswick gypsum, about three 25 car lots each week, moves west on 121 each night.  CN tried to have 121 do a pickup from the main line after the train had left Halifax, but because of the mainline grade there, they needed an extra man to make sure the train didn't roll away while they were picking up the cars.  So instead, one of the local switch jobs goes out to the mine from Dartmouth or Halifax and brings the loads back to Rockingham for 121 that night.  That's what SD75Is 5710 and 5747 were doing on the evening of May 21st, heading east on the Bedford Sub near mile 12.  The two diesels had already made a regular round trip to the mine that day as train 511, but now with a new crew, they are 509, the Dartmouth afternoon switch job.

GTD

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Interesting details on that operation.

Bob

Nice shot, lots of water. Any mosquitoes?
Fred

feclark Wrote:
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>Any mosquitoes?

I made sure I spent as little time in that location as possible.

GTD