Torbrook Mines Spur

[stem]

I was just reading through my "History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway" (http://www.dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?tit ... ic_Railway) when I ran across another feature of the DAR that I wanted to open up to discussion. Has anyone got any good history or references to this?

I found a little on a NS Gov website:
(http://www.gov.ns.ca/nsarm/virtual/meni ... ge=English)

Nova Scotia’s first iron mines were developed in 1825 at Nictaux Falls, southeast of Middleton in Annapolis County; and a Catalan forge — the province’s first — was set up on site to produce wrought iron. Also in 1825, the Annapolis Iron Mining Company built a blast furnace at Moose River (Clementsport) between Annapolis Royal and Digby, in order to smelt the magnetic ore recovered from three small local seams (the Miller, Potter and Milbury), as well as to accommodate production from the Nictaux deposits.

By the 1890s additional iron reserves had been discovered at Torbrook, near Nictaux, leading to a sporadic succession of mining and smelting initiatives. Altogether, some 350,000 tons were produced in the area between 1825 and 1913. However the Nictaux-Torbrook reserves — like the others in Annapolis County — were generally small and of poor quality, with a high phosphorus content; all the undertakings eventually failed.

More search yielded bits and pieces but nothing significant:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Torbrook-Deposi ... B0014PPP7S

[downeastrailfan]

Hi Steve,

I checked out this line back in 2005. My traveling companion plotted the line from one map onto a topographical map, and we found the roadbed, which is now a backwoods road. It branches off the H&SW line at Nictaux Falls. There were a couple places where rock had been blasted, and that was a dead giveaway, because no one would go through that trouble for a logging rd. The road comes out into a trucking lot.

I'll check google maps and try to make a sketch.

[Dan Conlin]

I was killing time searching around for info on the spurs to the various Torbrook Mines. It looks like there were two spurs: one spur from the W&A at Wilmot built around 1891 that ran south and another different one from Nictaux built in 1910 that ran east.

Here's a note about the W&A spur to Torbrook: https://books.google.ca/books?id=SjQ5AQ ... ia&f=false

And here's a map that shows the terminal and wye of the W&A spur at Torbrook Mines:
http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/geott/ ... 5_mn01.pdf

And this one is a map that shows the H&SW spur from Nictaux: http://ftp2.cits.rncan.gc.ca/pub/geott/ ... 0_mn01.pdf

I updated the H&SW DPI with info on the spur that ran from Nictaux.

Dan Conlin

[stem]

Interesting how they changed the mine spur from joining with the D.A.R. at Wilmot on the 1905 to joining with the H&SW at Nictaux falls on the 1960 map. That would explain the bridge abutments I photographed years ago in the Nictaux River just below Nictaux falls dam and power station. They no doubt are still there.

[SamuelMClark]

I just found on pg 131 in History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway a short mention of the Torbook Mine

From 1903-1907 88,834 Tons were hauled

[Dan Conlin]

Thanks for that reference. How interesting. I'll work up a Torbrook Mines page.

[stem]

Interesting how they changed the mine spur from joining with the D.A.R. at Wilmot on the 1905 to joining with the H&SW at Nictaux falls on the 1960 map. That would explain the bridge abutments I photographed years ago in the Nictaux River just below Nictaux falls dam and power station. They no doubt are still there.

Someone on Google took a photo of what I was talking about. This the old bridge linking to the H&SW just below Nictaux falls (the power dam),
https://www.google.ca/maps/place/Torbro ... 382fcc2534

[Dan Conlin]

Yeah, those are the piers of the Torbrook Mines Spur. One of the Halifax and Southwestern volunteers, Jeff Stover, also uploaded some shots and I've added them to the HSW Nictaux and Torbrook Mines page. There is a nice "then and now" pair, 100 years apart:
http://www.hswdpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Nictaux
http://www.hswdpi.ca/wiki/index.php?tit ... rook_Mines

I did up a DAR Torbrook Mines page tonight: http://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title=Torbrook_Mines

Interestingly, if you search for Torbrook on the Viewpoint.ca real estate page, the right of way boundaries still show up for both of the mines spurs. They may even have connected: http://www.viewpoint.ca/sidebarmap#!

[downeastrailfan]

I found the end of the HSW spur in 2005 and didn't see any traces of a mine. We weren't successful in finding the HSW spur.

Are there any traces of mining in the area?

[stem]

Interestingly, if you search for Torbrook on the Viewpoint.ca real estate page, the right of way boundaries still show up for both of the mines spurs. They may even have connected: http://www.viewpoint.ca/sidebarmap#!

That's some good detective work. I never thought of using a real estate map to locate old railway right of ways. I wasn't however able to locate the right of way for the D.A.R connection from Torbrook mines to Wilmot where it should have linked up. Did I miss something?

[Dan Conlin]

In terms of remnants of mines, there isn't much. I think I can see some ponds on Google Earth where the pits were located. If you look at different years on the time slider for Google earth you can see some roadbeds of the mine sidings. However the buildings are long gone and even the big piles of excavated rock are gone - probably sold for gravel. Perhaps there may be a few foundations from the power and hoist houses. The mine sites are located on private land. They had some deep pits with side tunnels - 500, 300, 200 feet etc. I will upload a new more detailed map with the mine locations as I plot them based on the old geological maps and reports that I have footnoted. You can see the Woodbury, Barteaux, and Leary shafts on this map near the corner of Torbrook and Messenger Roads in Torbrook Mines: http://dardpi.ca/wiki/index.php?title=F ... ookwye.jpg

If you read to the end of this old report, there is a detailed map of the mine pit and sidings of the two shafts of the Wheelock Mine just south of Torbrook Roads: https://ia801608.us.archive.org/32/item ... _82335.pdf

For Steve's question about where the DAR Torbook spur connected to the DAR mainline in Wilmot, it is hard to tell. The Viewpoint real estate map shows the curve of the spur from the Todd Branch Road to the Annapolis River where the bridge was, but nothing on the other side of the river, just a big rectangular block of land. Sometimes railways just bought a right of way over an existing property instead of actually buying their roadbed. I can see a farm road and possible track through the woods on Google Earth that may be the old right of way curving east, perhaps joining the mainline just west of the Wilmot station - but it is very faint and hard to say. I wonder if there is another map somewhere?? It is much clearer to see where the HSW spur joined the HSW mianline at Nictaux Falls - a nice clear curve of land plots on the Viewpoint real estate map.

Fun stuff. who'd have thought there was such a maze of tracks in the fields and forests of Torbrook! It'd make a nice layout for someone, the mines, those curvy tracks and the big trestle across the Nictaux River.

Dan

[stem]

Fun stuff. who'd have thought there was such a maze of tracks in the fields and forests of Torbrook! It'd make a nice layout for someone, the mines, those curvy tracks and the big trestle across the Nictaux River.

Dan

It is. And here we all are more than 100 years later still mining in the area - data mining that is.

I think I can piece that map in the back of the geological survey back into a single page if that's of any value.

And you know, it never dawned on me before that the reason for the H&SW extension to Port Wade was all about getting the ore loaded on ships!

[Dan Conlin]

The Torbrook Data Mines. Love it! I had the same idea about piecing together that report map. I pushed print and a whole bunch of segments came out. I will see if I can tape 'em together.

I found an amusing biography titled "Annapolis Valley Saga" of a farmer named Delacy Foster who lived long the Torbrook Spur. His neighbours all sold surface rights and railway right of way for $150 when the serious mine surveys started. Foster waited until 1909 they built the HSW spur right up the edge of his property and then stood his ground to get $900 and paid off his mortgage with it!

Foster worked in the mines some winters. He described how Torbrook briefly boomed. Miners even came from Cornwall England to Torbrook as well as across Nova Scotia, but on balance he felt it left Torbrook worse off as the mines raised hopes but led people to neglect their farms and didn't pay off, leaving big piles of slate dumps and abandoned mine buildings when they failed.