Oak Island Ballast Pit

Mile 55 from Windsor Junction on the Halifax Subdivision (Mile 70.7 from Halifax) at New Minas

New Minas was the location of several ballast pits used by the DAR. The most important was the Oak Island Ballast Pit located on the western side of New Minas beside the Cornwallis River. It was named after a nearby hill in a bend of the Cornwallis River called Oak Island (not to be confused with the famous treasure island in Lunenburg County or another Oak Island at Avonport). The pit was served by a spur on the south side of the mainline from an east facing switch at Mile 55.^[1] By 1958, the Oak Island pit had been exhausted and a new ballast pit, the New Minas Ballast Pit was opened a few miles west at Mile 51.5.^[2]

Gallery

DAR Steam Shovel No. 850 right hand side at the Oak Island Ballast Pit in New Minas, circa 1918.
DAR Steam Shovel No. 850 left hand side at the Oak Island Ballast Pit in New Minas, circa 1918.
DAR Steam Shovel No. 850 with builders information and five visitors at the Oak Island Ballast Pit in New Minas, circa 1918.
DAR Steam Shovel No. 850 with builders information and two visitors at the Oak Island Ballast Pit in New Minas, circa 1918.
Locomotive No. 32 and Postal Car 3702 in wreck at the Oak Island Ballast Pit near Kentville, circa 1920.
Oak Island Ballast Pit viewed from the old DAR mainline, New Minas July 2012
Old DAR sign on the overgrown spur to the Oak Island Ballast Pit, July 2012
The Oak Island Ballast Pit and spur can be seen just to the left of the "New Minas" name on the Kentville to Hortons Landing topographic map, circa 1956.