As a fan of railways, and a former resident of Shearwater in the Halifax Regional Municipality, I was eager to read the book “Railroaded” by Bob Chaulk, the story of the rail cut through Halifax and the creation of Ocean Terminals.
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If you’ve stood on the Young Avenue bridge in Halifax, looking at the tracks leading to and from the VIA Rail station or Ocean Terminals, you’re looking at the rail cut.
Halifax has been a seaport for centuries and a railway terminus for well over a century. In the early 1900s, Halifax ran out of space for the railway and for ships. The solution? Cut a trench through the peninsula and open a new terminal closer to the ocean!
The project was announced in October 1912.
Railroaded lays out the transportation history of Halifax and the factors leading up to the decision to make the cut. The work was a massive engineering effort and forever changed the city and the harbour as well.
Millions of cubic feet of rock and earth were blasted and excavated from the cut, and dumped into the harbour both at the south end, at Ocean Terminals, and at the north end, in Bedford Basin. Most of CN’s Rockingham Yard is built on material excavated from the cut. 12 bridges were built over the cut to continue roads that were severed by the cut (an additional 3 were added after the project was completed).
The Halifax Explosion of 1917 forced the contractors to accelerate the completion of at least some of the Ocean Terminals facilities, because the explosion obliterated the Richmond rail yard and piers, as well as the original Intercolonial train station. A temporary train station was built at Ocean Terminals and served until the current station opened on June 19, 1930.
The CN map below (dated 1951) shows the “cut” running along the “bottom” of Halifax parallel to the North West Arm, to Ocean Terminals on the right side of the map. Rockingham Yard is on the far left, and the original Intercolonial Railway route is shown along the upper edge of the peninsula. The map does not show the South End Container Terminal near Point Pleasant Park because that was opened in 1969.
I really enjoyed the book and the author’s research shows throughout the book. Newspapers, council minutes, correspondence and more are drawn from to tell the story.
Two things marred what would have been a completely enjoyable book. One, the author is clearly not in favour of the decision to make the cut, and I think it detracts from the story. Second, more maps would have been very beneficial to show the progress of the cut. Contemporary maps are included but they are not very readable at the size they are printed.
I would not let either one deter you from getting this book. As the cover says, it’s “the untold story of Halifax’s rail cut” and it is a story well worth reading.
Sounds like an interesting book! Great looking Queen Anne in the old photo also!