DAR predecessor Nova Scotia Railway - Halifax terminus?

[engineeral]

The North Street station of the Intercolonial Railway was opened in 1878, but the first Halifax Station of the Nova Scotia Railway was sited to the north (in the area then known as Richmond) and opened in 1858. The location was roundly criticized for being inconvenient with respect to access by passengers to the main part of Halifax, located well to the south. Does anyone know where this Richmond-area terminal was? I saw a picture showing railway yards downhill from Fort Needham with a small station-like building located roughly halfway between Richmond Street and Duffus Street. The picture is from a time after the North Street Station was in service. Is the small building perhaps the original station, located as mentioned?

[Dan Conlin]

The Nova Scotia Railway's original Richmond Station was a big barn-like building with three or four interior tracks. There is a picture of it in Shirley Woods Cinders and Saltwater. It was located near what is today Pier 9 in Halifax, just south of the Mackay Bridge. After the ICR's North Street Station opened in the 1870s the old station was used for freight. The smaller station that you mention below Fort Needham served as the Richmond Yard's station as well as a suburban station for the Richmond neighbourhood. It was built in the 1880s. This was Vince Coleman's station, where he was working on Dec. 6, 1917 and died sending his famous Halifax Explosion warning.
You can see both stations in this image from the 1880s of Richmond railway yards entitled Vince Coleman's neigbourhood:
http://museum.gov.ns.ca/mmanew/en/home/ ... osion.aspx
The yard station can be seen to the left The old Richmond Station is the dark gable wall seen in the centre in the distance just whee the tracks disappear around the bend.

Dan Conlin

[Dan Conlin]

Whoops the photo I was thinking of is not in Shirley Woods book. It is in the illustrated history of Halifax published in 1999 called Halifax: The First 250 Years by Judith Fingard, Janet Guildford and David Sutherland on page 72.
It is a large but really drab building - one big barn with three shed-like wings.

Dan Conlin

[stem]

Thanks for the great information and link to your article. You were sure the right guy to ask. It's amazing that over 90 years later, there are still so many heroic stories about the Halifax Explosion.

[engineeral]

Thanks, Dan. The picture you pointed out is the same one shown on page 27 of Halifax's Other Hill - Fort Needham From Earliest Times, by Paul Erickson. It's easier to see the big building in the book. Looking at the 1878 map I recently uploaded
(http://www.dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?tit ... ws1878.jpg) I believe the building we are talking about is just above the letters 'R C O' of Intercolonial and is between the eastward extensions of Vestry and Rector Streets.

Now I can even more understand why Halifax passengers didn't like the suburban location - it's like arriving at the airport! - and were happier with the North Street Station.

It's interesting to me that a corporate predecessor of what became the DAR built the line from Windsor Junction to Richmond (Halifax) but through all the back and forth that bit eventually went to the Intercolonial.

BTW, I guess all the churchy names in the Vestry, Rector, Lynch, Glebe neigbourhood are because the original owner of the area was the Anglican Church.

[Dan Conlin]

Yes, that must be it on the map in its post station configuration. Great map by the way. That's a neat view of Africville before it got crowded.
I think the station had a bunch of post station uses. Looks like it was incorporated into the roundhouse complex by then. I think they had a big roundhouse fire in the 1880s that burned everything down.
You are probably right about all those church names. Sadly, thanks to my museum work on the Halifax Explosion, I am familiar with those streets as addresses of those killed in the Halifax Explosion.
The airport analogy is apt for the Richmond station location. The horse railway that ran downtown had a nice trade. Apparently the naval dockyard to the south held up the move to North Street for many years over fears of fire from locomotive sparks.

Dan Conlin

[ns_kid]

The horse railway that ran downtown had a nice trade. Apparently the naval dockyard to the south held up the move to North Street for many years over fears of fire from locomotive sparks.

Dan Conlin

A late addition to this thread, I know. But I thought it was worth noting that the original car barn for the Halifax City Railroad Company, later Halifax Street Railway, is visible on the map engineeral posted. It's at the foot of Hanover Street at Campbell, under the label "O'Brien". A tire shop now occupies the site. William O'Brien chartered HCR in 1863, beginning operations with five horse-drawn trams on June 11, 1866. By the time of the map O'Brien had suspended operations, apparently in part because he feared the move of the Intercolonial Station to North Street, closer to downtown, would reduce traffic and increase his losses. Service resumed in 1886 as the Halifax Street Railway, still using the Hanover Street barn. I believe it continued in use for another 10 years until the Halifax Electric Tramway Company erected a new car barn on Lower Water Street to accommodate the new electrically-powered trams. That building was in use until 1949 when the rails were abandoned by successor Nova Scotia Light and Power, and a new garage built on Young Street for the new fleet of "trackless" trolley coaches.