Destruction of Enterprise Fawcett

I was sad to hear that the historic foundry in Sackville, New Brunswick was destroyed in a serious fire on Wednesday. The CBC reported that the fire started with two large explosions Wednesday evening, and flames as high as 10m were seen as fire crews from the region fought the blaze. CTV reported that the fire was extinguished early Thursday morning but the building is essentially destroyed.

The building housed Enterprise Fawcett, a company that made cookstoves, furnaces and heaters, one of the few remaining foundries in the world. It was started as the Dominion Foundry Company in 1852. The company employed either 25-30 or 60 people, depending on which news report you read.

The building was destroyed and rebuilt after another fire on July 29, 1908, according to Bill Hamilton. The same fire destroyed the original railway station nearby. The foundry building was designated a Local Historic Place.

I found an aerial photo of the foundry (and the railway station) in the book. The photo is dated May 30, 1931 and is from the New Brunswick Provincial Archives.


The foundry's railway tracks appear to be two tracks inside the complex as well as a track beside some kind of covered platform.

In 1931 the train station had two tracks, and in fact there were two tracks there until fairly recently. Note at the bottom of the photo that there is a third track.

Now look at this track diagram from the August 1988 CN Car Control Manual. I've circled the Enterprise Foundry name. You can click on the image to see the whole manual.

• D78 - Enterprise Foundry Co. 730 feet
• D79 - Enterprise Foundry Co. 400 feet
• D80TT - Crane and Team Track 165 feet

D72 through D76 are listed as storage and marshalling tracks, a little over 1400 feet each.

Does anyone know when the tracks into the foundry were removed?