Apple Blossom Special

Introduction

A special advertisement for the Apple Blossom Festival from The Advertiser, 1934.

Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley Apple Blossom Festival was created in 1933 to stimulate business and tourism during the Great Depression and celebrate local traditions. It grew out of earlier celebrations of the apple harvest in Hantsport. The DAR was heavily involved in the start of the Apple Blossom Festival. Key events were held at the railway's Cornwallis Inn and Grand Pre Park. The DAR promoted the festival extensively and offered a range of special fares and special trains for travellers to attend the event over the years including a memorable last hurrah in 1987 when a full VIA Rail train made the journey.

Grand Pre Specials

In the earl years of the festival, the DAR ran special passenger trains to the Grand Pre Park for the coronation of "Queen Annapolisa".

Queen Annapolisa VI in the Apple Blossom Festival coronation at Grand Pre Park with the water tower, British Canadian Fruit Association warehouse and DAR Boxcar 1330 in work train, June 5, 1938.
DAR passenger car from an Apple Blossom Special with several princesses and Queen Annapolisa, circa 1948.

The 1987 Apple Blossom Special

VIA Rail operated the Apple Blossom Special with conventional equipment one time only, May 30, 1987. It ran from Halifax to Kentville, where VIA 6781 reversed direction on the turntable. The train returned to Halifax the same day.

The crew for that run was Engineer JL Gee, 2nd Engineer B Smith, Conductor W. Smith and Brakemen P Laing and R Arenburg.^[1]

Locomotive: 6781
Baggage Car: 15205
Sleeper Car: Evangeline
Coach 3: ??
Coach 4: ??
Coach 5: ??

Wayne Hines recounts the background to the VIA Rail run for 1987 on the DARDPI Facebook page:
There's quite a story to this train. For several years VIA had been running an Apple Blossom Special with 3 railliners. However, because of some crossing accidents that laid up some of the railliners, VIA said they would not be able to run the train. I was on the Festival's PR committee at the time and suggested they run a conventional train. VIA said they had been told a conventional train would not be able to operate on the DAR because of weight restrictions. I didn't think that was right and had a chat with Earl MacMichael who, I believe, was the manager at the time. (not sure about his exact title) He said there would be no problem running a conventional train but it would cost $300 more than the railliners because of the need for extra crewmembers. I took his comments back to the VIA people and they said they'd get back to me. A couple days later they called all excited. They would put together a train with various cars like a coach, day-niter, sleeping car, etc., and they would try to get one of their shiny new F40-PH2 locomotives to haul it. The cars would be on display in Kentville during the time the train was there. I'm not sure about the baggage car, whether it was used for supplies for the train or just for display in Kentville. As it turned out, VIA was not able to cycle one of the new locomotives to be available for the train so, much to railfans' delight, they used FPA-4 6781 instead. I believe the passengers on the train were winners of a contest run by a Halifax radio station.

James Eaton adds a comment regarding the choice of cars from the DARDPI Facebook discussion:
This train was promoting VIA's newly refurbished and upgraded Ocean and Atlantic trains from Halifax to Montreal, hence the inclusion of a newly refurbished E class sleeper and diner

Ian Hayward comments about the baggage car from the DARDPI Facebook discussion:
This was the Apple Blossom Special. The Baggage car is actually an electric generator car.