Canadian Railroads > Londonderry, NS

Londonderry, in the foothills of Nova Scotia's Cobequid Mountains, is nothing more than a control point at mile 17 of the Springhill Sub now.  But in the late 1800s it was a thriving iron mining and smelting region, with a narrow gauge railway connecting to the Intercolonial's main line here.  As recently as 30 years ago, you could find the remains of "beehive" coke ovens,but everything else was pretty much overgrown or decayed.  Sanford Fleming took some heat historically for designing a huge bend in the ICR's main line on the way to Folly Mountain.  The charge was that he bowed to political pressure to put the iron mines on the route, but the track needed more distance as it was to ease the grade up the hill, so perhaps the claims were unfounded.

Londonderry faded in importance once Sydney became the centre for steel making in Nova Scotia,using local coal and iron ore from Newfoundland.  Now the biggest industry is blueberries.

At 16:37 on July 25, GE ACs 3879 and 3118 were struggling up the hill at about 10 mph, having just finished a short stretch of 1.2% grade, and more 1% with lots of curves ahead before they would reach the summit at Folly Lake.  Hopefully these late morning departures from Dartmouth will continue for 407, and I might even get a chase all the way to New Brunswick.

GTD

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Good you're documenting this now. The green looks like it's closing in!

Does Halifax still get export grain by rail?

Those are cement cars on this train and it's headed away from Halifax, BTW.

There are still grain elevators in Halifax, but they rarely ever see any covered hoppers, and probably haven't seen a unit grain train since the 1970s.  I think Quebec City gets most of that business.  There is a P&H flour mill at Ocean Terminals that gets single cars of wheat for milling, but that is only for local consumption.  The main business at the grain elevators these days seems to be wood pellets. which apparently can be handled much like grain.  However, it comes in by truck, not rail.

GTD