Coldbrook

Coldbrook, Nova Scotia

Subdivision Kentville, Mile 4.4

• Next Station East: Kentville
• Next Station West: Cambridge

Facilities & Features

• Coldbrook Station
• Howard Bligh & Sons Coldbrook Warehouse
• Coldbrook Bridge

Commerce & Industry

• Spur to Scotia Gold, Mile 4.2
• Spur to Hayes sawmill, Mile 4.29
• Siding for Shell Oil Bulk Dealer

Description & History

This small station on the DAR came to host several major industries. A large farm in the area was named "Colebrook" after a community in Wales, but the village became known as Cold Brook Station in 1869 when the Windsor & Annapolis Railway arrived. The community grew in the late 19th century and came to host two saw mills and the William Bligh apple warehouse in 1908. A bulk oil depot was built by the Canadian Oil company in the late 1920s selling White Rose gasoline. Later bought by Shell Oil, it remained in Coldbrook until the early 1970s when Shell moved operations to Kentville. The Scotia Gold apple processing plant began operation in Coldbrook in 1946 and steadily expanded in the 1960s.

While Coldbrook Station was reduced to a flag stop in the 1930s, its mail crane received considerable attention from photographers until the end of mail trains in 1956.

Coldbrook became the "end of track" for the DAR in 1990 when the line abandoned all of its tracks west of Kentville, except for 4.6 miles of track from Kentville to Coldbrook to service the Scotia Gold Plant. Tracks were finally removed in 1993.

Gallery

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  Coldbrook Station August 1949 with eastbound express about to hook the mail crane.

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  Topographic map from Berwick to Kentville circa 1956.

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  DAR mainline at Coldbrook looking east from Highway 101, Winter 1990.

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  Abandonment of the Kentville and Yamouth Subdivisions with crews lifting track at Coldbrook, Bligh Warehouse in background, March 28, 1990.

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  DAR mainline at Coldbrook looking west towards Scotia Gold, 1991.

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  DAR mainline at Coldbrook looking east from HW 101, 1991.

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  End of the mainline, Bligh Warehouse in background, 1993.

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  Spur to Scotia Gold, 1993

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  DAR tracks being removed at Coldbrook looking east towards the Highway 101 overpass,circa 1994.

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  DAR tracks being removed at Coldbrook behind Scotia Gold looking east towards the Highway 101 overpass, circa 1994.

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  Former Howard Bligh & Sons Coldbrook Warehouse, October 12, 2002.

References & Footnotes

• "Coldbrook", Places and Placenames of Nova Scotia, Nova Scotia Archives, p. 139-140.
• Marie Bishop, Memories of Coldbrook, Kings Historical Society (1999).
• Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873
• 1969 Memorandum of General Information

External Links

A remarkable 1956 photo of the Coldbrook, NS mail crane in operation, "Railway Mail Service", Old Time Trains