Hantsport, Nova Scotia

Mile 38.51 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 54.32 from Halifax)

Next Station East: Shaw's Bog
Next Station West: Avonport

Facilities & Features

Commerce & Industry

Fundy Gypsum
Sandford apple warehouse

Description & History

Hantsport is located on west bank of the Avon River at the mouth of the Halfway River. The river and the community that developed beside it in the 1790s were named because they marked the halfway point between Grand Pre and Windsor. The village was renamed Hantsport in 1849 as it had become the chief port for Hants County.^[1] Hantsport was a major shipbuilding centre in the sailing era and boasted a world-wide fleet of large square-rigged cargo vessels. The Windsor & Annapolis Railway arrived in 1869 with the first train passing through the village on Christmas Day 1869. The railway stimulated a number of industries: a foundry, a basket and a candy factory as well as apple shipping and several hotels built next to the train station. Hantsport became a town in 1895. In the 1920s, Hantsport became the headquarters of the Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company, founded by the Joudrey family who build a pulp and fibre-mill with a railway spur along the expanded wharves beside the Avon river. Further development occurred in 1947 with the Canadian Gypsum Company replaced their summer shipping terminal want Wentworth and their winter terminal at Deep Brook with a new year-round loading terminal at Hantsport. A new siding and spurs were constructed for the new gypsum dock which operated until the collapse of the gypsum industry and the closure of the Windsor and Hantsport Railway in 2011.

Operations & Orders

Gallery

Topographic map from Avonport to Shaws Bog circa 1956.
Hantsport with crowds gathered for a VIP train showing the Hantsport Station, water tower and the Hantsport Fruit Basket Company, possibly during the 1901 royal visit.
Hantsport viewed looking east from boxcar on the Hantsport team track with the Hantsport Station and the Sandford apple warehouse, circa 1895.
Interior of the Sandford apple warehouse in Hantsport, circa 1900.
No. 405801 as it first appeared on the DAR as Quebec Central bunk car No. 40792 used by surveyors at Hantsport on August 1, 1958.
Canadian Atlantic Railway hi-rail truck and No. 1275.
No's. 1275, 1273, 434676 and 1274.
Locomotive No. 1275
Hantsport, looking railway west.
No. 8138 at Hantsport in 1993.
No. 1274 at Hantsport in 1993.
Hantsport Yard close up on August 30, 2011.
Box cars in Hantsport 18th December 2012