Flying Bluenose

This summertime fast luxury train was the premier passenger service on the DAR. It began in 1891 when the "missing gap" between Digby and Annapolis Royal was completed creating an opportunity for a fast luxury service aimed at American tourists, connecting Halifax with passenger steamers at Yarmouth. The name combined two earlier Windsor & Annapolis trains, the "Flying Acadian" and the "Bluenose". The DAR purchased the first Pullman parlour cars in all of Canada, the Haligonian and Mayflower for the run(1), later adding the observation cars Annapolis Royal and Grand Pre. In some years the name was abbreviated on timetables as "Bluenose" but remained known and extensively marketed as the Flying Bluenose. The Flying Bluenose was joined by the New Yorker in the 1920s, a similarly fast and summer only train which connected to the New York steamships at Yarmouth. The Flying Bluenose appears to have fallen victim to the decline in tourism during the depression and was cancelled after 1935.

A typical consist of the "Flying Bluenose" in 1893 was made up of the locomotive "Evangeline" (No. 14), a baggage car, a first class and smoking car, the first class cars Jocosa and Fleur de Lys and the parlour car Mayflower.(2)

The Yarmouth to Halifax eastbound Flying Bluenose was Train No. 124.

The Halifax to Yarmouth westbound Flying Bluenose was Train No. 123.

Gallery

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  The Flying Bluenose, Train No. 124 crossing the Bear River Bridge, circa 1906.

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  The Flying Bluenose, Train No. 124, at Grand Pre, circa 1914.

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  The Flying Bluenose, Train No. 124 crossing the Avon River Bridge near Windsor, circa 1914.

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  Flying Bluenose at Hantsport, 1920.

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  No 503 leading the Flying Bluenose, Train No. 123 at Kentville circa 1920's.

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  No. 502 arriving at Lawrencetown c. 1924-26.

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  Train crew of the Flying Bluenose at the Yarmouth Station in 1916.

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  The 1920s model of observation car Annapolis Royal lettered for Flying Bluenose service.

References and Footnotes

(1) *Robert Wagner, A Century of Deluxe Passenger Cars in Canada

(2) Charles Thompson Smith, "The Dominion Atlantic and Nova Scotia" MA Thesis Acadia University August 1965, page 78.

• Gary Ness's Canadian Pacific's Dominion Atlantic Railway (Vol. II, page 7) Includes a photo of the Flying Bluenose at Kentville, circa 1920.
• Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, page 106.

External Link

• Wikipedia Article on DAR's Flying Bluenose