UPPER CANADA RAILWAY SOCIETY 2 * UCRS Newsletter * May 1992 UPPER CANADA RAILWAY SOCIETY EDITOR IN THIS MONTH'S NEWSLETTER Pat Scrimgeour Pictou County, Nova Scotia 3 The Rise and Fall of Industry CONTRIBUTING EDITORS Westray Coal Heoui^jtettenrJoh n Carter, Art Clowes, Scott Haski Sale of CN Truro-Sydney Line Don McQueen, Sean Robrtaiile, CN Passenger Marketing in 1992 6 Number 511 - May 1992 Gray Scrimgeour, Chris Spinney, The Ferrophiiiac Column 8 John Thompson, Gord Webster The Train Spotters 10 UPPER CANADA RAILWAY SOCIETY Transcontinental — Railway News 12 P.O. BOX 122, STATION A EDITORIAL ADVISOR Motive Power and Rolling Stock 14 TORONTO, ONTARIO M5W 1A2 Stuart I. Westland In Transit 18 NOTICES CALENDAR DOTS AND DASHES Friday, June 5, to Sunday, June 7 — Annual convention of the Ken Andrews has sent along a copy of Dots and Dashes, the Railroad Station Historical Society, Howard Johnson Hotel, quarterly publication of the Morse Telegraph Club, devoted to OakviUe. Photo sales/swap, tours, and banquet. FuU. package, preserving the knowledge, history, and techniques of telegraphy. $85. Ron Brown wiU speak on railway station history. MTC has five chapters in Canada CEdmonton, Saskatoon, Information from Canadian Station News, P.O. Box 171, Cobourg, Winnipeg, Toronto, and Montreal-Ottawa). Morse demonstrations Ontario K9A 4K5. can be seen at the Western Development Museum in Saskatoon Thursday, June 18, to Sunday, June 21 — Bus History Association ft-om July 7 to 11, at the Kinmount, Ontario, Fair on Labour Day 1992 "Greater Toronto Area" convention, based at the Holiday weekend, and every Sunday from May through October 15 at the Inn, Bramalea City Centre. Meetings and tours on all four days. Canadian Railway Museum in St-Constant, Quebec. Dues for this For information, write to Bemie Drouillard, BHA, 965 McEwan, club are most reasonable, at $7.00 per year. Information can be Windsor, Ontario N9B 2G1. obtained from MTC, RJV. Iwasyk, 12350 West Offner Road, Manhattan, IHinois, U.SA. 60442. Friday, June 19 - UCRS Toronto meeting, 7:30 p.m., at the Toronto Board of Education auditorium, 6th floor, 155 CoUege READERS' EXCHANGE Street at McCaul. Narrow-gauge railways on three continents, by Bill Coo, Box 231, R.R. #1, Kingston, Ontario K7L 4V1, is Doug Sheldrick, featuring slides and 16 mm movies. compiling information for a book on the foibles of VIA during its Friday, June 26 - UCRS Hamilton meeting, 8:00 p.m., at the life, and is looking for photos of unusual VIA trains west of Hamilton Spectator auditorium, 44 Frid Street, just off Main Toronto while the LRC cars were out of service recently. He will Street at Highway 403. The programme will be recent news and purchase slides or trade for his shots of trains in the Kingston a showing of members' current and historical shdes. area. In particular, he is looking for trains at various locations, GO consists (all-GO or with VIA units), short trains using the Friday, July 17 - UCRS Toronto meeting. rebuilt 8100-series coaches, the combined Trains 50 and 70 on Friday, July 24 - UCRS Hamilton meeting. Saturdays, and long conventional consists with two or more Sunday, August 16 — Streetcar tour to commemmorate the 100th locomotives. anniversary of electric streetcar operation in Toronto. A six-hour MORANT BOOK DELAYED trip, leaving from Russell Carhouse. Ticket price will be approximately $25.00. More details later. Toronto Transportation The book Nicholas Morant's Canadian Pacific, being published by Society, P.O. Box 5187, Station A, Toronto, Ontario M5W 1N5. CP locomotive engineer John Garden, has been delayed in the printing process. The book was to have been ready in February, Saturday, September 26 — Toronto Transportation Society but CP Rail News reported that it would now be ready in May. annual slide show and swap, at the Ourland Community Centre For more information or to order a book, write to Footprint in Etobicoke. For information on table rentals, write to TTS. Pubhsing Company, P.O. Box 1830, Revelstoke, B.C. VOE 2S0, We would like to list suitable events from all across Canada in this • or call 604 837-3337. The pre-publication price (to April 30) was coluinn. Please send news of excursions, raiifan meetings, and sales $42.50, and the book wfll sell in bookstores for $79.95; add ofrailroadiana to the UCRS well in advance of the event, in time for $3.50 for postage and handling. publication. FRONT COVER Please send news and short contributions Subscriptions to the Newsletter are VIA Train 144 at Norembega, Ontario, to the addresses shown at the end of each available with membership in the Upper regular column. Please send articles and Canada Railway Society. Membership dues on the former National Transcon• photos to the editor at the address at the are $26.00 per year (12 issues) for tinental Railway. The once-a-week top of the page. If you are using a addresses in Canada, and $29.00 for train is headed from Cochrane, computer, please send a WordPerfect or addresses in the U.S. and overseas. Student Ontario, to Senneterre, Quebec, and text file on an IBM-compatible (S'A" or memberships, for those 17 years or will then continue to Montreal as ••3)4") disk, along with a printed copy. younger, are $17.00. Please send inquiries Train 142. _p^^^^Q ^y Gord Webster, and changes of address to the address at Completed May 31, 1992 September 1, 1991 the top of the page. UCRS Newsletter » May 1992 « 3 PICTOU • WESTVILLE • STELLARTON • NEW GLASGOW • TRENTON PIGTOU COUNTY, NOVA SCOTIA Pictou County location of the Westray In spite of the extensive iron deposits are persuaded by the incentives are coal-mine explosion this month, is one of on the East Rivei; it was for many years usually those that most need them, and the oldest industrial areas of Canada. The more economical for the steel companies many have subsequently failed — such as cities and towns in the area were based on to import their pig iron from Scotland. In Clairtone Sound Corporation in the 1960s. coal and iron mining and steel production, 1892, the New Glasgow Iron, Coal and New employers that have lasted are until changes in the economics of Railroad Company was organised. It built the Scott Maritimes pulp mill at production and transportation made a blast furnace at Ferrona, between the Abercrombie Point, Michelin Hre and Pictou County imcompetitive with Sydney ore mines at BridgeviUe, the coal mines at Canso Chemicals at Cranton, and the and Hamilton. Now, Pictou Covmty is the WestviUe, and the mills at Trenton. The Nova Scotia Power thermal generating third-largest urban area in Nova Scotia, iron company was amalgamated with the station at Trenton. The Westray mine was with a population of over 30 000, and one steel and forge works to create the Nova the newest government-supported of the worst-off regions of Canada, with Scotia Steel Company (Scotia). industry and the explosion there is tragic unemployment in the range of 20 percent. In 1912, Scotia opened the Eastern Car not oiily because of the loss of life, but In these pages, we outline some of the Company in Trenton, as a response to the also because it marks another loss of hope history of industry and railways in Pictou success of Canadian Car in Montreal, for the people of Pictou County. Cormty and some of the current events which had absorbed all of the railway —Pat Scrimgeour and activities which affect the area. roUing stock manufacturers in the Maritimes. The economy moved further WESTRAY COAL THE RISE AND FALL OF INDUSTRY from raw material processing, towards The Nova Scotia economy has always been manufacturing. In 1911, two-thirds of the At the time of Confederation, many people substantially based upon its natural labour force of New Glasgow, and 90 believed that Nova Scotia wottld develop resources. Since fire 1700s, mining has percent of Ttenton's, were employed in into the industrial heartland of Canada. grown to become a $500-million industry metalworking. Among its advantages were the only employing about 5500 people province- Pictou County began to lose the known coal and iron deposits in the wide. advantages of its location when Scotia country. The National PoHcy allowed In 1989, construction began on the began to bring its iron ore firom Wabana, access to markets in Quebec and Ontario, new Westray coal mine, in Plymouth, just on Bell Island, Newfoundland, and its coal and protection from foreign suppliers. outside Stellarton. Westray operated by fi:om Sydney on Cape Breton. New iron Coal was discovered on the East River Toronto's Curragh Resources and the works at Sydney replaced those in in 1798, and the Albion Mines were region's largest employer witii about 240 Ferrona. With the growth of the auto opened at present-day Steharton. Large- workers, went into production in 1991. iadustry in Ontario, Hamilton moved scale mining began in 1827, and new Westray had signed a 15-year contract ahead of Pictou County in metalworking. mines were opened in Westvflle. Railways with Nova Scotia Power to supply After the advantages of its location connected the mines to ports at Granton, 700 000 tonnes of coal to the Nova Scotia were lost, Pictou County's metals industry Abercrombie, and Pictou Landing. At the Power generating station a few kilometres declined rapidly. Local control of Scotia peak of production, 2000 men worked in away in Trenton. was lost in 1917. In 1921, Scotia became coalfields, mining 900 000 tons per year To move the coal a short branch was part of Besco, based in Montreal, and A small blast furnace was opened in built firom the CN Hopewell Subdivision in duphcate facilities were closed.