Apple Warehouses

Apple Warehouses at Sheffield Mills, photographed by A. L. Hardy during harvest as wagons and a truck bring apples to be packed while CPR boxcar loads packed barrels and a wagon delivers new barrels, 1921.

Apple Warehouses

An early apple warehouse at Lawrencetown in full operation, c. 1890

Apple warehouses were the most common trackside structures along the Dominion Atlantic. Over 150 of them were located along the line serving the Apple Trains that were one of the mainstays of DAR operations. W.H, Chase of Port Williams built the first apple warehouse on the DAR in 1885, followed by the second built by E.J. Elliot in Paradise.^[1] These were followed by a boom in apple warehouse construction that took off after 1889, establish a trackside industry to continued as important source of rail traffic until the 1950s. Like grain elevators in Western Canada, they were all built in a similar way but also had numerous variations in size and style depending on where and when they were built. A significant influence was the construction company J. H. Hicks & Sons from Bridgetown which became the largest builder of the province's apple warehouses. Although the DAR is now gone and Nova Scotia's apple industry is a shadow of its past size, a surprising number of apple warehouses have found alternative use for storage, retail, workshop, chicken and vegetable use.

Typical Structure

Plans of a typical 40' x 100' warehouse, drawn by Dan Conlin, 2004

The first apple warehouses were 40' x 80', in the era of 36' long boxcars but soon 40' x 100' feet became the most common size as this length could load three 40' boxcars at once. As apple companies and co-ops grew and merged, they resulted in a few apple warehouses that stretched up to 300' along the track. The standardized design and dimensions made the easily recognizable to this day, even with extensive modifications. Most were of one-and-a-half story timber construction with a cedar shingle exterior, metal roofing, a main floor at loading level which was free of support columns, a second floor under the roof and a frost-free cellar, with thick walls, underneath. The foundation walls were of brick and mortared stone, or poured concrete. A small, heated room attached to the end of the main building provided the office for the warehouse manager. Inside, a packing room was usually located along the south wall, identifiable by a row of windows to provide light and, sometimes, a stove chimney to provide heat for the packers. Roadside insulated doors received apples from wagons and trucks coming from the orchard. Trackside doors loaded packed barrels onto boxcars. "Frostproof" insulated walls kept apples from overheating or freezing. Distinctive roof-vents and small, hinged side-vents prevented moisture and mold build-up. Most warehouses were built of wood but a few in the 20th century were built from hollow bricks called "tile".

Locations

Track chart of DAR Apple warehouses in 1927, showing, owner, location and capacity

Typical DAR scene, circa 1930: a small country station with five large apple warehouses sharing a siding, in this case at Sheffield Mills.

Apple warehouses were found from one end of the DAR to the other, from Newport in the east to Meteghan in the west. Most warehouses clustered on sidings around the stations of valley towns and villages, while a few were found in the countryside between stations on spurs close the neighbouring apple farms. Several towns such as Berwick, Aylesford and Waterville had large numbers of apple warehouses surrounding the station on both sides of the track. The heaviest concentration of the warehouses was on the DAR’s Kingsport Subdivision from Centreville to Kingsport line (formerly Cornwallis Valley Railway) which had 26 apple warehouses, nearly two apple warehouses for every mile of track, closely followed by 19 on the Weston Subdivision from Centreville to Weston, (formerly North Mountain Railway). The Halifax & South Western Railway] also had a small network of apple warehouses, with a dozen near the DAR by Middleton and Bridgetown. There were also a couple of wharfside apple warehouses in Annapolis Royal and Port Williams.

Operation

Work inside the Sandford apple warehouse in Hantsport, circa 1900.

See main article: Apple Trains The warehouses were usually located close to a station and several warehouses often shared the same spur or siding. During the harvest, from late August to October, horse and oxen wagons, and later trucks brought, loosely filled barrels to be graded, packed and stored from three insulated loading doors on the road-side. A warehouse manager organized packing and shipping from an office, often in room attached to one end of the warehouse. In the packing room, facing south, a team of workers dumped the barrels from the orchard and sorted the apples by size and quality. A row of windows usually indicated the locations of the packing room. Most were packed in shipping barrels. Some companies selected choice apples to be wrapped in boxes for premium sales. Lower quality or damaged fruit were set aside in barrels to ship to vinegar, juice or apple evaporator plants. A large basement, accessed through large hatches, allowed full barrels to be stored for the winter at an even temperature, free from freezing in winter, allowing packing and shipping to take place through the winter until April. A second story attic was used to store packing supplies, mainly empty barrels. Finished barrels were loaded onto boxcars from the track-side loading doors where they were stacked on their sides. Loaded boxcars were picked up by DAR Apple Trains to be taken to steamships for export, usually in Halifax.