I've always understood that the bridge at South Maitland had one span collapse into the river and that lead to the closure of the Truro Sub. Someone asked a question on Facebook asking why the like closed and that's what I replied. This morning there are two other replies saying the line was closed in 1982 because a sun kink four miles east (but the Sub heads north) caused a derailment and that's why they ended service and abandoned the Truro Sub... because of a sun kink?
I'm sure someone posted a shot here that showed one of the spans of the bridge with one end in the water, if they did Steve just hasn't had the time to upload it to the wiki.
Can someone set me straight, or maybe I already am.
Hi Paul, I will try to clear my information up on the Midland. The freight train heading for Truro came upon a sun kink Truro Sub between mile post 4 and 5. This was in Mantua. There was some photos posted to the DPI site in the past few months of the SW1200 on its side. Trains keep running after cleanup until June 21,1982. Train#22 arrived back in Windsor with engines 8132 and 8136 with 17 loads 1 empty. At this time the freight was running 3 times a week. No trains ran until a load of lumber was delivered to Kennetcook March 23,1983. The empty was picked up a week later on March 30,1983. The section crews keep maintaining the track until March 30,1983. The very last train was a OCS movement. A engine 8133 and van left Windsor for Truro at 8:45 June 20,1983 and picked up 7 cars of ties that CN interchanged. They arrived back in Windsor at 16:25. The plant were the DAR purchased their ties from was in Truro.
My personal opinion why the line closed is that the Truro Sub did make a lot of profit because of the gypsum mines and maybe the line looked good on the books until the derailment and then the railways were looking for anything to get track mileage decreased. There was very little customer base maybe 2 others feed in S Maitland and lumber in Kennetcook. The bridge stayed in good shape until it was removed. It would likely have been a lot of maintenance in the future years. All freight was diverted to Halifax for interchange.
That makes a lot of sense, looks a lot better on the books to make the profits off a three or four miles of track rather then an entire subdivision that only accounted for a few cars a year for customers.
