Aylesford, Nova Scotia

Next Station East: Berwick
Next Station West: Auburn

Facilities & Features

Commerce & Industry

Six Apple Warehouses, east to west:^[1]

Aylesford Fruit and Produce Shipping Company warehouse, 15,000 barrel capy.
Aylesford Fruit and Produce Shipping Company warehouse, 1,500 barrel capy.
Aylesford Fruit Company/Acadia Fruit Company apple warehouse, 15,000 barrel capy.
Aylesford Fruit and Produce Shipping Company warehouse, 10,000 barrel capy.
L.O. Neilly apple warehouse, 10,0000 barrel capy.
L.O. Neilly apple warehouse, 5,000 barrel capy.

E.G. Whitman Evaporator
United Fruit Companies Canning Factory and Evaporator, Mile 17.89

Description & History

Located at the beginning of the Annapolis River, the area was known to the Mi'kmaq as "Kobetek", or place of the beavers for the lodges in bogs along the river's headwaters, Aylesford was settled by New England Planters beginning in 1764, but the population was greatly increased by Loyalists after the American Revolution in the 1780s. The names Aylesford was bestowed in 1786, likely after the Earl of Aylesford, a prominent advisor to George III. Surrounded by fertile land, the community soon became a focus of farming and emerged as a major centre of the growing apple industry in the early 1900s. Its central location in the valley led the United Fruit Companies to establish a large evaporator and canning plant at Aylesford, later taken over by Scotian Gold which ran until 1964 when Scotian Gold shifted production to the modernized factory in Coldbrook. ^[2]

Gallery

Aylesford to Kingston Aerial.
Track chart of Aylesford, showing the station, apple warehouses and water tower, 1918.
Postcard of the Aylesford Station and hotel, circa 1920.
Track Chart, United Fruit Companies canning factory, Aylesford, 1918.
Colourized postcard of a DAR locomotive and westbound freight at Aylesford in front of the L. 0. Neilly warehouse, circa 1920s.
Postcard of the United Fruit Companies canning factory and evaporator, Aylesford, with a DAR 4-6-0 locomotive, circa 1920s.
Topographic map from Auburn to Aylesford circa 1956.
Dayliner Train No. 95 en route to Yarmouth in first week of service at Aylesford August 27, 1956.
Aylesford Station west end, looking along east apple warehouse spur September 1958.
CPR No. 8133 wayfreight en route to Annapolis Royal at Aylesford in August 1959.
Aylesford looking east in 1975.
VIA Rail sand platform at Aylesford. April, 1986.
VIA Rail sand platform at Aylesford. April, 1986.
1977 aerial photo of Aylesford.
1977 aerial photo of Aylesford.
1967 photo of Aylesford.