Apple Trains

Loading apples with DAR boxcars No. 1238, 1267 and No. 1300, circa 1894-1920.

Apple Trains

Apple freight was the DAR's most important cargo. Apple traffic helped build the DAR and the DAR built the Valley's apple industry from a small side-crop to a major international export. The orchard potential helped attract investors to built the Windsor & Annapolis Railay in 1867. Orchards were expanded as soon as railway construction began and once trackside apple warehouses made their appearance in the 1880s, exports took off. Apple traffic averaged between 1 and 2 million barrels a year with the record crop in 1933 hitting 3,673,678 barrels. Britain was the world's largest importer of apples and in the 1930s, one out of every ten apples sold in Britain came from from Annapolis Valley farms via the DAR. Over 150 apple warehouses lined the route of the DAR.However, the loss of the British export market during World War Two crippled the apple industry and greatly reduced DAR freight traffic from the 1940s onward. Valley farmers had to shift from a massive overseas export market of fresh fruit to a smaller national and regional market, with a few exports to the competitive apple market in the United States. Focus moved more on processed apple products such as juice. The hundreds of apple warehouses closed, although the surviving volume of apple traffic processed at centralized apple processing plants such as Scotian Gold at Coldbrook, M. W. Graves in Berwick and the Canada Foods Plant in Kentville remained important DAR customers in later years.

Operations

From September to April during the peak decades of the apple industry, apples were loaded at 150 apple warehouses along the DAR. Local trains brought them to Kentville to be marshaled into freights bound for steamships in Halifax. Ideally, shipments were timed to leave the valley apples warehouses in the morning to be loaded on British-bound steamships in Halifax by night time, thus minimizing the risk of damage to the fruit in box cars. In peak seasons, this produced massive double-header 50 boxcar freight specials, as many as six special trains per weekend, requiring an extra switcher locomotive in Kentville and extra CPR vans from Montreal. Apple trains also served the vinegar plants and apple evaporators such the Berwick Evaporator which ran all through the winter. This heavy traffic had to be maintained right through heavy winter snow conditions. In the early years of the W&A, and the DAR, many steamers met trains at Annapolis Royal for apples. The Kingsport Wharf and the Port Williams wharf also served as smaller shipping points for apples. However Halifax grew to be the largest destination for apple trains as it could better serve larger steamers.

Rolling Stock

Refrigerator car ARL No. 2500, custom-built for DAR apple service, circa 1905.

The DAR used standard 36 and 40 foot boxcars in summer and early fall. In early years, ventilated boxcars were popular for early fall shipments to avoid heat and moisture build-up. During the winter when freezing temperatures arrived, a large fleet of specially adapted insulated boxcars were used for apple service, the 69900 series. Portable stoves were often carried in the box cars in winter to avoid freezing, tended by men from apple warehouses who road with the car to Halifax. This method counted on carefully timed shipments that left the valley in the morning to be loaded on the British-bound steamships the same day to minimize the risk from cold weather or damage in transit. Refrigerator Cars also played an important role in winter. Their insulated sides kept apple barrels from freezing in sub-zero temperatures, assisted in very cold weather with portable stoves or charcoal heaters. One apple grower in Falmouth, E. E. Armstrong, built a custom reefers for apple service in 1905, ARL Nos. 2500 and 2501. While refrigerated cars protected apples and ensured a better quality product, the reefers also has less capacity, due to the thick walls and bunkers, with capacity for only 200 barrels of apples as opposed to 300 barrels in a standard boxcar. CP refrigerator cars were used to carry some North American export apple traffic, such shipments to processors in Upstate New York in the 1950s.

Structures

See main article Apple Warehouses

Apple warehouses, where apples were packed, stored and shipped, were the centrepoint of apple operations. Evaporators, like the Berwick Evaporator and a dozen others were also important customers for apple trains as well as a few vinegar and cider plants. In later years, large central processing plants like Scotian Gold in Coldbrook and M. W. Graves in Berwick remained important customers.

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  Berwick Station during the apple export season before apple warehouses were built, 1890s.

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  The Pleasant Valley apple warehouse during apple shipping season with box car being loaded, with the rear of the Berwick Station to right, 1911.

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  Boxed apples being loaded onto a box car at Kentville, circa 1912.

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  Apple loading with DAR boxcars No. 1238, 1267 and No. 1300, unknown location, circa 1894 - 1920.

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  Apple train in Halifax in 1925.

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  DAR Chart of Apple and Produce Warehouses, February 23, 1927, a map of all apple warehouses on the DAR giving owners and capacity in barrels, 1927.

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  Typical DAR scene: small country station with giant apple warehouses, circa 1930.

• CDCDA Apple Warehouse Thumb.jpg

  Centreville Station surrounded by apple warehouses.

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  Apple barrels piled by the station at Centreville.

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  A double header apple train in Centreville.

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  E. E. Armstrong Apple Warehouse in Falmouth with his refrigerator cars Nos. 2500 and 2501 circa 1906 and same location in 2022.

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  Map by Willard Longley showing apple warehouse locations in 1931

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  Article about the Berwick Apple Evaporator, 2006.

References and Footnotes

MARGARET CONRAD, “Apple Blossom Time in the Annapolis Valley 1880-1957”, ‘ ‘Acadiensis’ ‘, pp. 14-39.