The Sydney Coal Railway is a Canadian short-line railway operating in the eastern part of Cape Breton County,

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 ...

. SCR operates from the international coaling piers on Sydney Harbour in

Sydney Sydney is the capital city of the States and territories of Australia, state of New South Wales and the List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city in Australia. Located on Australia's east coast, the metropolis surrounds Syd ...

to the

Lingan Generating Station The Lingan Generating Station is a 620 Megawatt, MW Canada, Canadian coal-fired Power station, electrical generating station located in the community of Lingan, Nova Scotia, Lingan in Nova Scotia's Cape Breton Regional Municipality. Lingan is oper ...

, a

coal Coal is a combustible black or brownish-black sedimentary rock, formed as rock strata called coal seams. Coal is mostly carbon with variable amounts of other Chemical element, elements, chiefly hydrogen, sulfur, oxygen, and nitrogen. Coal i ...

-fired electrical generating station near New Waterford. The railway's trackage, the piers, and the generating station are owned by

Nova Scotia Power Nova Scotia Power Inc. is a vertical integration, vertically integrated electric utility in Nova Scotia, Canada. It is privately owned by Emera and regulated by the provincial government via the Nova Scotia Utility and Review Board (NSUARB). Nov ...

, a subsidiary of

Emera Emera Incorporated is a publicly traded Canadian multinational energy holding company based in Halifax, Nova Scotia. Created in 1998 during the privatization of Nova Scotia Power, a provincial Crown corporation, Emera now invests in regulated ele ...

Inc.

History

The railway line was completed in 1895 by the Dominion Coal Company (DOMCO) between Sydney and

Louisbourg Louisbourg is an unincorporated community and former town in Cape Breton Regional Municipality, Nova Scotia. History The harbour had been used by European mariners since at least the 1590s, when it was known as English Port and Havre à l'An ...

. The trackage was organized as the Sydney and Louisburg Railway (S&L) in 1910. The S&L, along with other assets of the corporate successor to DOMCO,

Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation The Dominion Steel and Coal Corporation (also DOSCO) was a Canadian coal mining and steel manufacturing company. Incorporated in 1928 and operational by 1930, DOSCO was predated by the British Empire Steel Corporation (BESCO), which was a merger ...

(DOSCO), were expropriated by the Cape Breton Development Corporation (DEVCO) on March 30, 1968. DEVCO operated the railway as an unincorporated department of its Coal Division, however it was informally known as the Devco Railway. DEVCO built a coal preparation and coal wash plant and storage facility, along with new locomotive shops at Victoria Junction, a location midway between Sydney and the Lingan Generating Station near New Waterford. On November 23, 2001, DEVCO closed its last underground coal mine, the Prince colliery, after the company failed to entice any private sector investors to purchase the mine. DEVCO was out of the coal mining business, however for a period of approximately 1 month, it was in the coal importation business, with trains operating from the international coaling piers to the storage facility and on to the Lingan Generating Station.

The federal government moved swiftly to sell off assets, transferring the mine properties and mineral rights back to the provincial Department of Natural Resources. DEVCO subsequently decommissioned the Victoria Junction coal wash plant and began to immediately prepare remediation of the mine sites. On December 18, 2001 DEVCO sold all surface assets, including the international shipping piers, railway track, railway rights-of-way, locomotives and rolling stock, and a coal storage facility and locomotive shops at Victoria Junction to 510845 New Brunswick Incorporated, a wholly owned subsidiary of Emera, the holding company which owns Nova Scotia Power and operator of the

. Emera subsequently contracted the operation of its newly acquired DEVCO surface assets to Logistec Corporation. Logistec sub-contracted operation of the railway to the Société des chemins de fer du Québec (Quebec Railway Corporation), a Quebec-based railway holding company and short-line operating company. The new railway was called Sydney Coal Railway, although ownership of the track and other assets remains with Emera's subsidiary, 510845 New Brunswick Inc. Despite SCR having been created by SCFQ as an operating company in December 2001, the railway itself was actually legally chartered to 510845 N.B. Inc. until January 1, 2003, when the Sydney Coal Railway was formally recognized by the federal government. On 3 November 2008 Logistec announced that it was purchasing the SCR from Quebec Railway Corporation.

Current operations

Current SCR operations consist of running coal imports which arrive at the international coaling piers on Sydney Harbour by

bulk carrier A bulk carrier or bulker is a merchant ship specially naval architecture, designed to transport unpackaged bulk cargo—such as Grain trade, grain, coal, ore, steel coils, and cement—in its cargo holds. Since the first specialized bulk carrie ...

from the

United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...

and

South America South America is a continent entirely in the Western Hemisphere and mostly in the Southern Hemisphere, with a considerably smaller portion in the Northern Hemisphere. It can also be described as the southern Subregion#Americas, subregion o ...

. Coal is unloaded from ships and stored at the pier, and is then loaded onto trains and delivered directly to the Lingan Generating Station. Typical trains consist of a pair of ex-DEVCO GMD GP38-2 locomotives and 21 ex-DEVCO Ortner 5 bay rapid discharge hopper cars. The shop facility at Victoria Junction is still in use, but the wash plant and storage facilities are no longer used. SCR also maintains an interchange connection with the North American railway network at Sydney where it connects to the

Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway The Cape Breton and Central Nova Scotia Railway is a short line railway that operates in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia. CBNS operates of main line and associated spurs between Truro in the central part of the province to Point Tupper ...

, with the latter operator possessing a connection with

Canadian National The Canadian National Railway Company () is a Canadian Class I freight railway headquartered in Montreal, Quebec, which serves Canada and the Midwestern and Southern United States. CN is Canada's largest railway, in terms of both revenue an ...

Truro Truro (; ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city and civil parish in Cornwall, England; it is the southernmost city in the United Kingdom, just under west-south-west of Charing Cross in London. It is Cornwall's county town, s ...

; however, this connection is currently threatened as CBNS has discontinued service on the line from Sydney to St. Peter's Junction (near Port Hawkesbury), and will apply to abandon the line April 1, 2016.

References

{{Canada railways Mining railways Nova Scotia railways Transport in the Cape Breton Regional Municipality Coal in Canada Mining in Nova Scotia