Canadian Railroads > Last Train West of Hantsport

This post is a bit of a postscript for Gary's earlier today.

Business on the DAR gradually declined over the years, with the only consistent traffic being the unit gypsum trains between the mines near Windsor, and the gypsum pier in Hantsport.  In the summer of 1989, CP Rail ceased freight service west of Coldbrook, although they still ran the Dayliner, usually with two, but sometimes three cars, for VIA.  The last freight customer was Dominion Textiles in Yarmouth, which would get the occasional TTX boxcar of cotton for the mill there.  In January 1990, VIA lost half its routes, and the Evangeline was one of them.  Things contracted a bit more, with track being cut back to New Minas, before CP sold what was left to Iron Roads in the summer of 1994.

By the summer of 2007 deferred maintenance had made it impossible to continue serving the feed mills and potato chip plant in New Minas and Port Williams, and the WHRC ran one last train  on August 17 to pick up any cars that were left on customer tracks.   After the empty gypsum train arrived in Hantsport that morning, GP9RM 4014 set out light from Windsor to go to the end of the line.  It's shown here at Falmouth, passing old apple warehouses from the DAR's glory days, on track that remained active with the gypsum trains for another 3 years, at 11:01.

45 minutes later, but only 10 miles farther west, the Geep was crossing Bluff Rd. for the second time and nearing Avonport Sta.

15 minutes later, and another 3 miles further, 4014 was passing the Grand Pré National Historic Site.  They still had another 6 or 7 miles to go, and I had to work that afternoon, so I reluctantly broke off the chase and headed for Halifax.  They had gone 13 miles in slightly more than an hour, and part of that was on the 30 mph track to Hantsport, so track speed had really slipped.  My 1979 CP Atlantic timetable lists the speed along here as 65 mph for the Dayliners, and 40 for freights (with a few permanent slow orders on some curves).

GTD

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Great photos of a sad day.
Bob

cn6218 Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
>
> 15 minutes later, and another 3 miles further,
> 4014 was passing the Grand Pré National Historic
> Site. 

> My 1979 CP Atlantic timetable lists the speed along
> here as 65 mph for the Dayliners, and 40 for
> freights (with a few permanent slow orders on some
> curves).
>

Thanks for this Geoff!

Just to the left of the last photo....the loading area the W&H Excursion Trains used at Grand Pre is still there and upgraded for access to the Church.

And it was quite the sight watching the Dayliners rolling/swaying through the weeds on the lightly ballasted track here at 65mph!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/14/21 07:11 by ghCBNS.

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