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Hantsport
Mile 38.60 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 54.32 from Halifax)
- Next Station East: Mount Denson
- Next Station West: Avonport
Facilities & Features
Commerce & Industry
- Canadian Gypsum Company
- Minas Basin Pulp and Power
- CKF Paper Limited
- Hantsport Fruit Basket Company
- Hantsport Fruit Company/United Fruit Companies/Annapolis Valley Canners apple warehouse, 15,000 barrel capacity
- Sandford/British Canadian Fruit Association/Annapolis Valley Canners apple warehouse, 7,200 barrel capacity
- G.H. Yeaton Warehouse, 3,800 barrel capacity
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 rails being landed for railway construction at the aboiteau by the ship Sunny South for the final push to complete the line in late 1869.[2] 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 with two warehouses being built on a spur behind the station, one for the Laurie Sanford Apple Warehouse and one for the United Fruit Companies Co-operative. Several hotels built next to the train station. Hantsport became a town in 1895.
In 1927, Hantsport became the headquarters of the Minas Basin Pulp and Power Company, founded by the Jodrey family who build a pulp and paper mill with a railway spur along the expanded wharves beside the Avon river. The Jodrey's expanded in 1933, building a paper products plant, the Canadian Keyes Fibre Company (CKF) next to their pulp mill at the Hantsport waterfront which included an oval shaped spur. Further development occurred in 1947 when 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. The gypsum dock became a busy operation with its own switcher and up to six gypsum trains a day.
After the DAR abandoned its tracks west of New Minas in October 1993, it closed the Kentville Car Shop and transferred MOW equipment and servicing for cars and the remaining DAR locomotives to Hantsport.[3] Car and locomotive servicing we done at outdoor facilities in Hantsport until the Windsor and Hantsport Railway built its own shops in Windsor. The US housing crisis in 2010 caused a collapse in the gypsum market which resulted in the closure of the Hants County gypsum mines and the end of gypsum shipping by rail and ship at Hantsport. This the Windsor and Hantsport Railway shut down in 2011, ending railway activity in Hantsport.
Operations & Orders
Gallery
1918 Track schematic for Hantsport including the gypsum loading spurs, the Minas Basin Pulp spurs, the Hantsport Railyard and the Halfway River Bridge and Aboiteau.
Topographic map from Avonport to Shaws Bog circa 1956.
Construction work at the Halfway River Bridge in Hantsport, with the town in the background, date unknown.
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, the G.H. Yeaton Warehouse and the Sandford apple warehouse, circa 1895.
Interior of the Sandford apple warehouse in Hantsport, circa 1900.
Dumping gypsum into a schooner at Hantsport, Nova Scotia ca. 1900.
Dumping gypsum into a schooner at Hantsport, Nova Scotia ca. 1900.
The Flying Bluenose at Hantsport crossing the Halfway River Bridge, with coach No. 27 and possibly baggage car No. 46 and Engine 24, circa 1910.
Recruits of the 85th Battalion at the Hantsport Station with the Sandford apple warehouse in background, circa 1915-16.
Crowds gather around the still-steaming wreck of Locomotive No. 33 near Hantsport, April 5, 1919.
Baggage and passenger cars derailed after Locomotive No. 33 went off the track near Hantsport, April 5, 1919.
Locomotive No. 33, baggage, express and passenger coaches derailed near Hantsport, April 5, 1919.
Locomotive No. 33 derailed with baggage and express cars near Hantsport, April 5, 1919.
Wrecking train arrives to clear the tracks after Locomotive No. 33 derails near Hantsport, April 5, 1919.
Station Street in Hantsport with the back of the Hantsport Station and the Yeaton's Candy Factory buildings, 1932.
The new Hantsport Station under construction, photographed by Charles Whitmore of Hantsport, 1944.
A gypsum train near Hantsport, pre-1959.
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.
Hantsport Station east end, with the Sandford apple warehouse, July 1959.
Hantsport Station and the Hantsport Railyard with the Sandford apple warehouse and the United Fruit Companies Warehouse, July 1959.
Hantsport Station with the Sandford apple warehouse and United Fruit Companies warehouse, August 1961.
Hantsport Station and CPR Boxcar 52477, circa late 1960s.
Hantsport Waterfront in spring, 1967.
No. 8133 and ballast cars repairing washout at the Halfway River Bridge at Hantsport, CKF paper plant in background, August 1971.
Hantsport depot July 18, 1975.
RDCs VIA 6136, VIA 6143 and VIA 6108 at the Hantsport Station with Annapolis Valley Canners warehouse behind, July 21, 1984.
Van No. 434678 at Hantsport, July 2, 1993.
Hantsport repair, July 6, 1993.
Wheel change, Hantsport, July 6, 1993.
Wheel greasing, Hantsport, July 6, 1993.
Canadian Atlantic Railway hi-rail truck and No. 1275, Aug. 29, 1993.
Van No. 434676 between No. 1273 and No. 1274 at Hantsport, Aug. 29, 1993.
Flat Car No. 419503 behind loco No. 1274 at Hantsport, possibly Aug. 29, 1993.
Fundy Gypsum 45 tonner No. 647 at Hantsport in July 1994.
Hantsport, with the G.H. Yeaton Warehouse looking railway west, July 1994.
CP Rail caboose No. 434678 on the storage track just east of the Hantsport yard adjacent to the CKF plant, July 1994.
Hantsport Station with MOW equipment and the, Annapolis Valley Canners/Hantsport Fruit Co. warehouse in background, Feb. 9, 1999.
Hantsport Yard close up on August 30, 2011.
Box cars in Hantsport 18th December 2012.
Halfway River Bridge washout at Hantsport with DAR tracks hanging in midair over the eroding causeway over the former aboiteau, December 2017.
Halfway River Bridge washout at Hantsport, with collapsed aboiteau remnants of older bridge structure, April 28, 2018.
Halfway River Bridge at Hantsport, east side with wash out and piles from older bridges, with the CKF paper plant in background, Sept. 15, 2018.
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References & Footnotes
- Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873
- 1969 Memorandum of General Information
- Dominion Atlantic Railway, DAR Chart of Apple and Produce Warehouses, February 23, 1927
- ↑ C. Bruce Fergusson, "Hantsport", Place-Names and Places of Nova Scotia Nova Scotia Archives (1967), p. 278.
- ↑ Hattie Chittick, Hantsport on Avon, Hantsport Women's Institute, 1968, page 27.
- ↑ David Othen, Dominion Atlantic Railway The Final 25 Years, page 79.
