The Windsor and Annapolis Railway (W&AR) was the most significant of the founding companies of the Dominion Atlantic Railway. The W&AR was formed by Nova Scotian railway promoters and British investors in 1864 to connect the government owned "Windsor Branch" of the Nova Scotia Railway at Windsor with Annapolis Royal. Construction was completed in 1869. The railway struggled at first but soon developed a growing passenger and freight traffic from the Annapolis Valley. Built at first to the broad guage of 5' 6", it converted to standard guage of 4' 8 1/2" in 1875. The W&AR faced a formidable rival in the Western Counties Railway (WCR) which used political connections several times to take control of the lucrative "Windsor Branch". The W&AR merged with the WCR in 1894 to create the Dominion Atlantic Railway with the W&AR's old mainline becoming the Kentville and Halifax subdivisions of the Dominion Atlantic. The W&AR was the senior partner in the merger which established the old W&AR headquarters in Kentville as the headquarters of the new company. The Dominion Altantic inherited the W&AR's "Land of Evangeline" identity and the W&AR's livery of bright magenta red locomotives. The W&AR was also a small-scale builder of wooden railway passenger and freight cars at its Kentville Shops, building several cars that survived into the DAR fleet.

Gallery

• 

  Kentville Station and Yard in the Windsor and Annapolis era, July 27, 1871

• 

  Windsor and Annapolis Coach No. 3 Juno Builders Photo 1893.

• 

  Windsor & Annapolis No. 15 "Oberon" builder's (Baldwin) photo in 1893. This locomotive became the DAR No. 19.

References and Footnotes

• Gary Ness's Canadian Pacific's Dominion Atlantic Railway (Vol. I), page 1, (Vol. II), page 13.
• Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, pages 51-87.