Kingsport

Kingsport Station and warehouses with locomotive No. 470, c. 1942

Kingsport, Nova Scotia

• Subdivision Kingsport, Mile 13.6

Previous Station: Pereau

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Kingsport was the eastern terminus of the Cornwallis Valley Railway branchline. It served as a busy shipping point and interchange between rail and ocean transport from 1890 until 1961.

History

Kingsport Air Photo 1945

Previously inhabited by Mi'kmaw and Acadians, Kingsport was settled by New England Planters in the late 18th century. A first known as Indian Point and Oak Point, it became Kingsport in the 19th century as ship yards and a shipping pier made it the leading port in Kings County. Major wooden shipyards built a series of large square-rigged sailing ships from the 1850s to the 1890s. As wooden shipbuilding declined in the face of iron steamships, investors in the area pooled money to bring the railway to Kingsport. The railway arrived in 1889, going into full service in 1890, triggering a major increase in the apple industry. Apple warehouses were built at almost every crossing along the CVR, one every three miles including two inside the wye facing the station at Kingsport.

The Kingsport Wharf, originally built to serve the shipyard and extended for coast shipping was extended to service ocean steamships with a railway spur along its entire length. Apples, potatoes and lumber were exported while coal, fertilizer, general freight and even Sable Island horses were imported. Kingsport was also part of the Minas Basin ferry route for passengers, freight and vehicles carried out by a series of steamships, the SS Evangeline, SS Prince Albert and later the MV Kipawo which connected Kingsport to Parrsboro and Wolfville from 1890 until 1940.

A number of industries operated in Kingsport following the railway's arrival including a saw mill, moulding mill, two boat builders and in the first few years of the railway, a ship repair operation in the old shipyard. While the mills eventually declined, rail related tourism grew as several hotels such as the Sunnyside Inn and the Longspell Inn were built for summer tourists and a colony of summer cottages grew around the village and beach.

The railway operations at Kingsport centred on a large wye with a single stall enginehouse where the branch line locomotive received light servicing and stayed overnight. Because of the short distance to Kentville, there were no water or coaling facilities. Kingsport was home to many of the regular train crews on the branchline and also a summer home to some DAR employees who owned cottages there.

Kingsport generated brisk passengers service in its first years, peaking in 1914 at six trains a day (eight on Saturdays!) A lasting service were morning and afternoon "school trains" which took generations of older children from Kingsport to the high school in Kentville. The growth of automobile traffic eroded passenger service but Kingsport maintained four mixed-trains a day until rail service was abandoned in 1961. The Dominion Atlantic tried a bus service in DAR livery in the 1950s but reverted to mixed trains for the duration of rail service. Apple traffic remained the mainstay of the line but the loss of the British export market after World War II and the public expansion of highways deminished the remaining freight on the line leading to abandonment in 1961. Kingsport's population plunged by half in the years after World War II, falling to 250 people by the 1970s, but the community rallied in the 1990s becoming a popular bedroom community for the Wolfville-Kentville area with investments in a revitalized park around the old railway wharf, a community centre built in an old general store and an annual community fair.

Framed by the tracks of the wye and the spur to the railway wharf, the railway defined life in Kingsport for generations and the sight of trains meeting ships on the wharf became an icon of the community. Although few visible traces remain of the railway in Kingsport, the compact geography of Kingsport in the railway era has led two railway modelers to create Kingsport in HO scale: Paul Bushnell and Dan Conlin.

Facilities

Kingsport Station, north side of main line

Siding for two apple warehouses opposite station, south side of main line:

• Mayflower Fruit Company warehouse
• Kingsport Fruit Company warehouse

• Section House at east switch of wye

Wye

Kingsport Enginehouse

Spur line to Kingsport Wharf

• Siding at wharf, abandoned by 1911

Waiting room/freight shed and lighthouse at end of wharf

Features

Kingsport Wharf

Gallery

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  Kingsport circa 1890s with wharf and shipyard.

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  Kingsport Wharf, high and low tide views, with flatcars and gondola on wharf siding, circa 1900.

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  Kingsport Wharf with Locomotive No. 12; Combine No. 24 (behind engine) and Combine No. 31 meeting the DAR ferry SS Prince Albert, summer 1911.

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  Combine No. 24 (behind engine) and Combine No. 31 with Locomotive No. 12 in a detail of a Kingsport Wharf photo, c. 1911

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  Ephraim Hiltz inside the Kingsport Enginehouse with locomotive No. 21, circa 1915.

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  DAR Inspection Car on the Kingsport Wharf, circa 1914-18

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  Automobile claim ticket for Parrsboro to Kingsport voyage aboard MV Kipawo August 15, 1938.

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  Kingsport Wharf and freight shed, Summer 1940.

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  DAR locomotive No. 470 with Train No. 11 at the Kingsport Station, circa 1942.

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  Topographic map from Kentville to Hortons Landing circa 1956.

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  The Kingsport Wharf, the final terminus of the CVR, showing the second DAR freight shed on the wharf in the last days of the subdivision, circa 1960.

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  Kingsport Engine House May 1958.

References and Footnotes

• "Time Table No. 77 For Employees June 21, 1931", Dominion Atlantic Railway, p. 3

• Dominion Atlantic Railway Employee Time Table September 25, 1949, Library and Archives Canada, pmp -HE.2804 DC

External Links

• Cora Atkinson, A History of Kingsport, Nova Scotia]
• Kinsport History along with community information.
• Kingsport at Wikipedia