Cape Tormentine

Railway facilities at Cape Tormentine

The village of Cape Tormentine was once a very important location, being one terminus of the ferry between New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island. The Cape hosted the ferries that carried people, vehicles and rail cars between the mainland and Borden, PEI.

The opening of the nearby Confederation Bridge on May 31, 1997 rendered the ferry service obsolete.

Recent Railway History

Cape Tormentine was the end of the CN Tormentine subdivision that ran to Sackville, NB to connect with the rest of the CN railway network.

This track diagram, from the August 1988 CN Car Control manual, shows the layout of the track in Cape Tormentine at the time.

Some of the tracks shown:

• R059 - turntable and roundhouse.
• R061 to R064 - storage tracks
• R065 - locomotive storage and fueling
• R069TT - team track and storage track
• R070 - new main line
• R071 - old main line
• R081 - ferry ramp track 1
• R082 - ferry ramp track 2
• R083 - ferry dock storage track
• R085 - reacher car storage

Cape Tormentine station

Reacher cars (usually flatcars) were used to "extend the reach" of the diesel locomotive to allow it to move cars on and off the ferry without the diesel locomotive putting its weight on the ramp or the ferry.

The nearby Hill Yard, less than a mile away from Cape Tormentine, had two storage tracks of 2515 feet each.

The last train left the Island on December 28, 1989 aboard the M.V. John Hamilton Gray, with CN 1786 and 1750, six flatcars, two tank cars, two gondolas, two snow plows and two cabooses.

There's a lovely A.W. Mooney photo on Railpictures.ca showing CN 3632 in front of the station. An RS-18 was stationed in Cape Tormentine to switch the ferry.

My Visit

On a recent trip to PEI, I decided to stop to visit Cape Tormentine. I had never been there before, and a recent series of photos posted by Taylor Main inspired me to visit while the railway infrastructure was still present.

The former train station at Cape Tormentine, NB

Cape Tormentine features several railway buildings - the train station, roundhouse, turntable and water tower.

The provincial Department of Natural Resources acquired the station and property from CN. The station was leased by the local Cape Tormentine Community Development Corporation until 2005 and used as a tourist information centre.

Former tourist information sign at the Cape Tormentine station

The tourist information function is now performed by the new buildings at Cape Jourimain where the mainland end of the Confederation Bridge touches the land.

The station's roof is definitely deteriorating, and I understand the floor has at least partially collapsed inside.

Two stall roundhouse at Cape Tormentine

The roundhouse is a two stall roundhouse, clearly in some disrepair. I did not go in any of the buildings so I do not know what it is like inside, but I can't imagine it is in good shape.

The turntable pit is filled in but the walls of the pit are still evident in places. You can see a portion of the wall in the foreground of the photo above.

Speaking of the turntable, that is nearby, very overgrown and rusted by this time.

Turntable at Cape Tormentine

I'm told the turntable was air-powered and it was connected to the locomotive on the turntable to provide the compressed air to move the turntable.

Closeup of turntable at Cape Tormentine

The railway water tower also stands.

Water tower and roundhouse at Cape Tormentine, NB

I don't know the function of this other building but I have to assume that it was related to the railway.

There is no trace of the railway between the station and the wharf as far as I could see. You can drive out to the pier but you can't drive very far along it as most is now fenced off. There is a great view of the Confederation Bridge from here, though!

Confederation Bridge from Cape Tormentine

That was my visit to Cape Tormentine. If you are driving to Prince Edward Island, I encourage you to drop by and have a look at these relics of the ferry operation while they are still there. There have been calls to have them demolished.

Ownership and Future

I reached out to the provincial government and Jean-François Pelletier from the Communications Department responded very quickly to provide some background on who owns the station and area. It is owned by the provincial Energy and Resource Development (ERD) department, formerly the Department of Natural Resources. He provided some details on its recent history, included above, and said that in 2015 an engineering firm "was retained to assess the condition of the buildings". The firm recommended that the buildings should be removed.

This month, an engineering firm was engaged to survey the site for hazardous materials. Railway sites are often contaminated with various substances, such as spilled coal and diesel fuel and various lubricating oils.

In his email, Mr. Pelletier concluded, "Once the results of the Hazardous Material Survey are received, ERD will be in a position to make recommendations regarding the future of the site."

The rear lighthouse at Cape Tormentine, NB

The PEI Ferries

There were four ferries operating on the Cape Tormentine-Borden route when the Confederation Bridge was being completed: MV John Hamilton Gray, MV Abegweit, MV Holiday Island and MV Vacationland.

The first MV Abegweit is in Chicago and the second MV Abegweit has been scrapped. MV John Hamilton Gray was sold and eventually scrapped.

MV Holiday Island, 2003

MV Holiday Island continues to serve PEI on the Wood Islands - Caribou route between PEI and Nova Scotia, working that route with MV Confederation. The accompanying photograph was taken from on board Confederation, en route to PEI.

MV Vacationland was acquired by the province of New Brunswick for Grand Manan service but never put into use. At last report she was in Quebec for refit for freight service.

The wharf itself is privately owned. The lighthouse at the end is owned by the Canadian Coast Guard and is off limits. The rear lighthouse, pictured above, is deteriorating.

Updates

The Cape Tormentine railway station was demolished in early November 2016, after a provincial government tender was issued for its removal at the end of August. The status of the roundhouse, turntable and water tower is unknown at this time.

See Also

• History of Cape Tormentine Terminal
• History of the Cape Tormentine Lighthouses
• Diesels on Prince Edward Island eBook
• Blog posts about PEI

Southwest Manitoba Elevator Trip, Part 6 - Starting the Second Day

Napinka, Manitoba

Back in August 2014 I took two days (Aug 8-9) to photograph every grain elevator in southwest Manitoba. Here's part 1 and part 2 and part 3 and part 4 and part 5.

I arose bright and early on the morning of August 9, 2014 to continue photographing Manitoba's grain elevators. I left Melita and headed due east to Medora to photograph its remaining elevator.

Medora

This tiny town has one remaining grain elevator, an ex United Grain Growers (UGG) elevator.

The light blue lettering and roof is a give-away that it was UGG.

The other giveaway is the faded UGG logo on the side of the weathered wooden structure.

Under the UGG logo is a Sherritt logo. I'm not sure what this structure used to be but it sure has some nice weathering.

The elevator appears to be privately owned and in operation.

Next I headed to...

Napinka

The town of Napinka, namesake for the CP Napinka subdivision, has two grain elevators. The left elevator is the former Pool "A" elevator and the right (an ex Ogilvie elevator) is the former Pool "B" elevator. The very end of the Napinka subdivision is visible between the horses and the elevators. There used to be a wye here with the CP Estevan subdivision but the west leg was removed some time ago.

Here's the former Pool "A" elevator.

The former Pool "B" elevator is an ex Ogilvie grain elevator.

The "POOL B" is faded on this side but more pronounced on the other side.

Those SOO hoppers are pretty beat up!

After that, it was off to one of my favourite towns from this trip, Tilston.

However, I'm going to skip over that town for now and come back to it in the next post. I think it's worthy of its own post.

After leaving Tilston, I came across a crop duster doing passes over some sunflower fields. It was quite interesting!

This was C-GYGV, a Cessna A188B built in 1975. The A188 was a purpose-built agricultural aircraft. Almost 4000 of these were built. You can see a video of an A188B planting rice to give you an idea of how low they fly.

With my telephoto lens (and a bit of driving to get in the right place) I was able to get some decent shots of the plane.

I left the wire in the shot to show how low the plane was flying. They have to fly low to minimize dispersion of the product. These pilots are highly skilled and I admire their work.

It was fun to watch him do his work but I had grain elevators to photograph! On to...

Sinclair

Sinclair, Manitoba has a single grain elevator, the former Manitoba Pool elevator.

I don't think it is in service any more. The siding is certainly overgrown and in fact the vast majority of the CP Arcola subdivision is slated for abandonment.

The rails are starting to grow rusty.

I was surprised to see an open convenience store in Sinclair, Wiebe's Corner Store. It was well stocked inside and I had a good chat with the owner, who graciously allowed me to take a photograph inside.

The store features a gift shop, the local post office, a Sears catalogue outlet and is a one-stop shop for the town. I assembled an impromptu lunch from the store to take with me. At this time it was 10:20 AM.

After leaving Sinclair, I headed over to:

Reston

The town of Reston's single grain elevator is now privately owned, by the Elliott Brothers.

I drove around the town to photograph the elevator from all sides.

This side is the most interesting to me.. not for the elevator but for what is in the foreground.

Check out that trailer!

What the heck is a Texas Mexican Railway trailer doing in a small town in Manitoba??

As I drove around the elevator, I stumbled across this little gem that I would have otherwise totally missed.

This is a 4-stall CPR roundhouse, built in 1906. I didn't approach closer as it is clearly on private property and possibly owned by Gray's Transfer. There is a sign on Highway 252 pointing to it, so perhaps access can be arranged. I decided on a Sunday morning that there was little chance of that, so I took my photos from the road and carried on.

As I mentioned earlier, the next post will be all about the town of Tilston, Manitoba. Read on!

PS Bill Hooper has some great photos of Reston in his Flickr stream from the late 1950s. Check them out! I love the second photo of CPR's homemade weed killer train.

Kentville Roundhouse petition

If you have a minute, please consider signing the Save the Kentville Roundhouse petition. There is some development planned for downtown Kentville, and the town council has approved the demolition of the old Canadian Pacific roundhouse, the last roundhouse in Nova Scotia. This structure should be preserved as an example of the rich railway history of the Maritimes.

Please provide your address when you sign. It will not be displayed but it will provide an indication of where people are from, and add credibility to the petition.

www.petitiononline.com/RAG/petition.html