Kentville Freight Shed

Kentville Freight Shed

The freight shed in Kentville began a small board and batten neoclassical shed built by the Windsor and Annapolis Railway in 1869 facing the Kentville Station. A team track and freight siding served the shed on the western side. The shed was expanded with eastward expansions several times, including a major 1890 rebuild as freight and express traffic boomed.(1) A further expansion in World War One added a gothic window. The entire freight shed was moved westward several hundred feet in the 1920s to make room for gardens facing the station. The wooden shed was demolished and replaced on August 7, 1954 with a large aluminium sided freight shed directly across from the station with large truck ramps for CP piggyback and Smith Transport service.(2) This shed served until the end of rail operations in Kentville and was demolished in the 1990s.

Gallery

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  The first recorded photo of the Kentville Station taken in August 1869, also showing the Freight Shed and Car Shop.

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  The first freight shed on the far left, facing the Station July 27, 1871

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  The expanded shed circa 1890

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  The shed in 1900

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  Kentville Station and shed circa 1904-1914

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  The station and expanded shed with gothic window circa 1914-1918

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  Station with the 1954 freight shed just visible through the trees to the left, July 20, 1967.

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  West wall of the Freight Shed is visible in the distance to the right of the Diesel shop, formerly the car shop on August 17, 1977.

References and Footnotes

(1) Kentville New Star newspaper, May 6 and Oct. 21, 1890

(2) Charles Thompson Smith, "The Dominion Atlantic and Nova Scotia" MA Thesis Acadia University August 1965, page 181.