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Stewiacke and Lansdowne Railway

By John R. Cameron

The tale of the Stewiacke and Lansdowne is particularly sordid, involving a reasonable, if optimistic, railway proposal, the likelihood that at least some track was laid, a former premier as a major promoter and financial disaster including litigation to recover the balance of shares subscribed for but not fully paid up. The story begins in 1886, with the incorporation of a company to build a railway from "some point on the Intercolonial Railway between Brookfield and Milford stations, to some point at or near Lansdowne siding on the Pictou Branch railway so-called, traversing the Stewiacke Valley". The Stewiacke Valley was a major agricultural area of prosperous farms, but the upper end of the valley and on to Lansdowne was (and is) largely unpopulated. The route was sensible and the connection, some miles south of Westville, sound. But was there enough traffic to support another Truro to New Glasgow railway? The evidence suggests there was not.

The next year the company obtained a mechanism for settling land claims and authorization to connect directly with the coal fields at Westville (1887, c.62). In 1888 (c.84), the company's powers were broadened, Simon Holmes and Charles Annand (former premiers) became incorporators, and the route was modestly redefined. Pictou County agreed to a subsidy in lieu of a free right of way; $500 per mile not to exceed $8,000, payable when the railway opened to traffic (c.91).

Fever struck the company the next year (1889, c.85), when routes were extended in every direction. Branches were authorized to connect with the Intercolonial at Halifax harbour and Windsor Junction, and with the Windsor Branch at Windsor through Newport. Another line was to run east through Antigonish and Guysborough counties to connect to the Eastern Extension. The provincial subsidy was limited to the line to Eastville. The extensions may have been added to entire shareholders. At least one later lawsuit was defended on the basis that the shareholder had only agreed to contribute towards the western extension to Windsor (he lost). These putative extensions may have represented the optimism generated by actually having laid some track (as with the Midland), but surely dissipated the company's energies and diverted them from their original objective.

The company tried again in 1890 (c.63) with an entirely new description of its route map, adding a railway from a point between Newtons' Mills (at the head of the Stewiacke) and Westville westerly to the New Brunswick border. This further duplication of existing lines made no economic sense and suggests that the railway's route extensions were only made on paper to suggest the company would build all the long-for railways Nova Scotians were pushing for. Government money (the usual salvation) just was not there. The Act did recite that the company had issued bonds at $15,000 per mile for the 25 miles between the Intercolonial and Eastville. Was the extended route map an effort to make the bonds more saleable as securities of an extensive railway network?

More prosaically, Colchester agreed to pay for its portion of the right of way, up to $9,000 (1890, c.98). Pictou County prepared to borrow its promised subsidy (1891, c.98). Land damages were the subject of the 1892 amendment (c.87). Pictou County changed its grant from $8,000 back to $500 per mile for up to sixteen miles from the Colchester line to Westville (1893, c.117) if the line was completed by February 1, 1895.

Then the railway went broke. By 1900 (c.120), the province was taking over that part of the line paid for by Colchester County, including the entire railway between the Intercolonial near Brookfield to Eastville, still in Colchester County, about 25 miles. The lands were to be held in trust for a railway to Eastville upon payment to the government of specified amounts. The list of amounts, Schedule A, amounts to three closely printed pages. An amendment the next year (1901, c.51) added even more debts to the list.

Pleas for help to the Dominion government had failed. Holmes and John S.D. Thompson, a prime minister, had been colleagues in the Conservative provincial government of 1878-1882. Thompson had actually succeeded Holmes as premier. But expecting Ottawa to subsidize the construction of a competitor of its own railway was unrealistic. The Stewiacke and Lansdowne was perhaps the most spectacular failure in Nova Scotia's railway history. It had plenty of company.

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

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