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Torbrook Mines
Torbrook Mines, Nova Scotia
- Next station south: Wilmot
Torbrook Mines was the location of several iron mines that shipped iron ore by rail from a spur that connected to the DAR at Wilmot from about 1891 to 1907.
Iron was mined at several locations in Torbrook on a small scale for about 15 years in mid 1800s. Mining was restarted on a large scale in 1890, creating the community of Torbrook Mines.[1] The Torbrook Iron Company opened a three mile spur north from Torbrook Mines to Wilmot on the Windsor and Annapolis Railway (later the Dominion Atlantic) in the fall of 1891 to serve three of the mines at Torbrook, shipping the iron ore via the DAR to ironworks at Londonderry in Colchester County.[2] The spur included a wye and loading siding at the mine site in Torbrook. Ore shipments on the spur between 1903-1907 totaled 88,834 tons but ceased in 1907.[3]
Another two mines were opened in Torbrook by the Canadian Iron Company about 1905, but they shipped their ore through the Halifax and South Western, first by wagon and then by a 3 & 1/2 mile long railway spur built in 1910 which ran west from Torbrook to Nictaux and from there to a ore loading wharf at Port Wade on the Annapolis Basin.[4] (See Torbrook Mines Spur on the Halifax and Southwestern Railway Digital Preservation Initiative. ) However the volume and quality of the iron ore was disappointing and the mines at Torbrook closed about 1913.[5]
Gallery
Annotated map detail showing the HSW and DAR Torbrook Mines Spurs, 1891-1913
Torbrook Mines rail spur terminus and wye, detail from geological map, 1905
Footnotes and References
- ↑ "Torbrook", Places and Placenames of Nova Scotia, Public Archives of Nova Scotia, p. 677
- ↑ R.G.E. Leckie, "Iron Ore Deposits of Torbrook", Journal of the Mining Society of Nova Scotia, Vol. I, 1892-1893 p.56-57
- ↑ Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic Railway, page 131.
- ↑ Howells Frechette, Western Portion of Torbrook Iron Ore Deposits, Annapolis County, Nova Scotia Canada: Department of Mines Bulletin No. 7, Ottawa (1912), p. 11
- ↑ Ian Lawrence, Historic Annapolis Royal, Halifax: Nimbus Press (2002) p. 116
