The Cornwallis Valley Railway (CVR) was a historic Canadian railway in

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia is a Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada, located on its east coast. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and Population of Canada by province and territory, most populous province in Atlan ...

Annapolis Valley The Annapolis Valley is a valley and region in the province of Nova Scotia, Canada. It is located in the western part of the Nova Scotia peninsula, formed by a Trough (geology), trough between two parallel mountain ranges along the shore of the B ...

. It was built in 1889 and ran from

Kentville Kentville is an incorporated town in Nova Scotia. It is the most populous town in the Annapolis Valley. As of 2021, the town's population was 6,630. Its census agglomeration is 26,929. History Kentville owes its location to the Cornwallis Ri ...

Kingsport Kingsport is a city in Sullivan and Hawkins counties in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It lies along the Holston River and had a population of 55,442 at the 2020 census. It is the largest city in the Kingsport–Bristol metropolitan area, w ...

serving the Cornwallis Township area of Kings County. For most of its history, it operated as a

branch line A branch line is a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Branch lines may serve one or more industries, or a city or town not located ...

of the

Dominion Atlantic Railway The Dominion Atlantic Railway was a historic railway which operated in the western part of Nova Scotia in Canada, primarily through an agricultural district known as the Annapolis Valley. The Dominion Atlantic Railway (DAR) was unusually divers ...

and was sometimes known as the "Kingsport Line".

Route

The CVR crossed its namesake, the

Cornwallis River The Cornwallis River is in Kings County, Nova Scotia, Canada. It has a meander length of approximately through eastern Kings County, from its source on the North Mountain at Grafton to its mouth near Wolfville on the Minas Basin. The lower p ...

, at Kentville and ran north to stations at the Camp Aldershot military base, Mill Village (Steam Mill), and Centreville and then ran east to Ford's Crossing (Gibson Woods), Sheffield Mills, Hillaton,

Canning Canning is a method of food preservation in which food is processed and sealed in an airtight container (jars like Mason jars, and steel and tin cans). Canning provides a shelf life that typically ranges from one to five years, although under ...

, Pereau, and ended on the large government wharf at

. An additional branch, the North Mountain Line was added in 1914 running from Centreville to

Weston Weston may refer to: Places Australia * Weston, Australian Capital Territory, a suburb of Canberra * Weston, New South Wales * Weston Creek, a residential district of Canberra * Weston Park, Canberra, a park Canada * Weston, Nova Scotia * W ...

Creation

The Cornwallis Valley Railway was formed in 1887 by merchants in

Canning, Nova Scotia Canning is a village in northeastern Kings County, Nova Scotia located at the crossroads of Route 221 and Route 358. History The area was originally settled by Acadians who were expelled in 1755 during the Acadian Expulsion. After the Acadi ...

, and

including the Member of Parliament

Frederick William Borden Sir Frederick William Borden, (May 14, 1847 – January 6, 1917) was a Canadian politician. While he was the Minister for Militia and Defence, he was the father of the most famous Canadian casualty of the Second Boer War Harold Lothrop Borden. ...

. Canning merchant Stephen Sheffield was the president. The

first sod Groundbreaking, also known as cutting, sod-cutting, turning the first sod, turf-cutting, or a sod-turning ceremony, is a traditional ceremony in many cultures that celebrates the first day of construction for a building or other project. Such cer ...

was turned at Canning to symbolically begin construction on September 28, 1888. Built with local labour under professional supervision, the line opened on December 22, 1890, leasing rolling stock and terminal facilities from the

Windsor and Annapolis Railway The Windsor and Annapolis Railway (W&AR) was a historic Canadian railway that operated in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley. The railway ran from Windsor, Nova Scotia, Windsor to Annapolis Royal and leased connections to Nova Scotia's capital of Ci ...

(W&A) in Kentville. Tapping the richest

apple An apple is a round, edible fruit produced by an apple tree (''Malus'' spp.). Fruit trees of the orchard or domestic apple (''Malus domestica''), the most widely grown in the genus, are agriculture, cultivated worldwide. The tree originated ...

growing areas of Nova Scotia's

, the railway immediately led to the construction of large

warehouses A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the outskirts of cities, to ...

beside its tracks to pack and ship apples. It quickly proved profitable and was purchased by the Windsor and Annapolis Railway in 1892. When the W&A became the

in 1894, the CVR became a subdivision of the Dominion Atlantic but the name "CVR" continued in local use until the line was finally abandoned in the 1990s.

Growth

The CVR's traffic thrived on apple exports as well as freight and passengers from the connection to steamers and

schooner A schooner ( ) is a type of sailing ship, sailing vessel defined by its Rig (sailing), rig: fore-and-aft rigged on all of two or more Mast (sailing), masts and, in the case of a two-masted schooner, the foremast generally being shorter than t ...

s at the Kingsport wharf. Apple warehouses grew to 30 on the short line: one for every mile and a half of track. It enjoyed heavy traffic in its first decades, running up to scheduled six trains a day. It also served as a

suburban railway Commuter rail or suburban rail is a passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting commuters to a central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Commuter rail systems can use locomotive-hauled tr ...

for the central part of Kings County, bringing school children, shoppers and workers to town in the morning and back home at night. In 1914, a western branch was completed to

, adding more apple shipping traffic.

Closure

The collapse of the apple industry after 1945 and the increasing availability of paved roads both eroded traffic in the 1950s. After several years of application, the Dominion Atlantic abandoned most of the CVR lines in 1961. Tracks were cut back to Mill Village, (Steam Mill), 2 miles north of Kentville. The line became a spur serving feed mills and a fertilizer plant at Mill Village. On September 22, 1993, the owner of the Dominion Atlantic,

CP Rail The Canadian Pacific Railway () , also known simply as CPR or Canadian Pacific and formerly as CP Rail (1968–1996), is a Canadian Class I railway incorporated in 1881. The railway is owned by Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited, known unt ...

, abandoned all its tracks west and north of Kentville. Most of the CVR was sold to adjacent landowners, although portions of the roadbed remain as informal hiking and snowmobile trails. Only one station survives, the Camp Aldershot Station, now used by the camp's military band."Subdivision Kingsport" ''Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative''
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References

External links

* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20110517022156/http://ns1758.ca/rail/railways.html#cornval-rail Notes on Company Historybr>1949 Timetable
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cornwallis Valley Railway Canadian Pacific Railway subsidiaries Transport in Kings County, Nova Scotia Defunct Nova Scotia railways Cornwallis Valley Railway Rail transport in Nova Scotia Railway companies established in 1887 Railway companies disestablished in 1892 Standard-gauge railways in Canada