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Joggins Railway

By John R. Cameron

The Joggins Railway was essentially a mining railroad to get coal from the mines at Joggins and River Hebert to the Intercolonial at Maccan. The first railway (1883, c.76) was to run "from the Shores of the Bay of Fundy, at or near the Joggins aforesaid, to the Intercolonial Railway, at or near Maccan Station". In some ways, this is the simplest case of railway legislation in Nova Scotia, for, by 1887 (c.63), the Minudie Railway Company was being chartered to connect "a suitable point on the Joggins railway to Minudie in the county of Cumberland", another coal mining centre. The simplicity of the early legislation is clearly the result of a fairly short, fairly easy route for a bulk product, coal, in ample supply. The only serious engineering problem was the bridge across River Hebert, and that was a relatively simple problem.

The Minudie extension was more complex. In 1888 (c.80), that company was authorized to cross the Joggins Railway and extend its operations up the west side of River Hebert to Young's Mills, a distance of five or six miles. Interestingly, at the same session (c.85), the Joggins Railway, renamed the Joggins Coal and Railway Company, was authorized to also build a railway to Young's Mills, up the east side of River Hebert.

In 1889, the land damages question arose (c.102). Apparently, the railway took too much land for its right of way. A new survey was undertaken and filed. The statute validated the new plan and provided for the appraisal of the value of the land taken. The next year this action had to be repealed (1890, c.106) as it had been taken without notice and the Joggins Railway company "had been in possession of the lands hereinbefore mentioned for a long time". The new survey was cancelled and a list of valuations appended to the statute was validated. There were 38 names on the schedule. The municipality was required to pay the values set out. In 1891, two earlier plans were validated (c.76) and the towns required to pay their shares.

Corporate changes were the theme of the next several years. The Canada Coals and railway Company (which included the redoubtable Simon Holmes among its incorporators) was incorporated by statute in 1892 (c.159) with general railway powers. It acquired the Joggins Railway. A minor amendment was made to its charter in 1893 (c.189).

A Minudie Coal and Railway Company was incorporated in 1903, with authority to run a railway from River Hebert Corner to Minudie, crossing the Joggins Railway and River Hebert (c.190). This appears to be much the same line as originally chartered to the Minudie Railway in 1887. The charter was amended in 1905 (c.137), but the railway proposal remained much the same.

[SOURCE: A Legislative History of Nova Scotia Railways, by John R. Cameron, 1999.]

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