DAR Hants Border to Grand Pre

[Paul Charland]

Hi All,

Finished another few miles of the Dominion Atlantic. This covers Hants Border to Grand Pre, little freight traffic, and only crossings used as flag stops... This is the transition from dike farmland to wooded coastal scenery.

Train 1 heads south along the Minas Basin shortly after departing Hantsport.



9059 is seen crossing the Blue Beach bridge. Blue Beach is the location of one of the oldest fossil finds in the world. At low tide visitors can walk along the shore and literally pick fossils out of of the side of the cliff that date back to the transition from sea to walking mammals.



The Minas Basin is over 80 feet below Train 1 at this point between Hantsport and Avonport.



Train 1 passes the Horton's Bluff lighthouse.



9059 passes through the village of Avonport.



Train 1 crosses the 570 foot long Gaspereau River bridge.



Like several smaller communities along the DAR a crossing provides the location for a flag stop at Grand Pre.



Passengers may get a glimpse of the church that the Dominion Atlantic Railway built as part of the Grand Pre National Historic site.



Paul

[Tedsgrandson]

Hi Paul:

Beautiful pictures! Thanks so much for posting these.

It's nice to think that the tracks showing in these pictures are still in existence, although they're in pretty rough shape.

Jim Joyce
Dartmouth, N. S.

[Paul Charland]

Hi Jim,

Thanks for the kind words, been a while since I've seen this with my own eyes... some of this I've only been through after dark so it's pretty new to me.

As soon as I get some feedback from the people testing the route and can fix any problems I'll post a link to the beta here so anyone with MS Train Sim can download what I have of the route and have some fun.

Paul

[Dan Conlin]

Great stuff Paul. This is a nice scenic section of the line. I love your passenger window glimpse of the Grand Pre Chapel and the lighthouse is nicely done. Only suggestions I can think is to add a gypsum boat out in the Basin. There is also a lot more trees in the section of the Blue Beach overpass.

Dan Conlin

[Paul Charland]

Hi Dan,

I will be making one of the Gypsum ships in the future, have to wait for Google or Bing to add the satellite shots from Hants Border to East Hants so I can put some track down there.

Last summer while waiting for new satellite shots I started the Bedford Sub, have track laid from Windsor Junction to about a mile short of the Halifax Station. Now I'm trying to merge this with the DAR route only to find merging routes is a big pain and it might be easier to just start laying all this track again!

Did do the Evangeline statue:

...along with the two memorials at Horton's Landing:

Had a known how far the two at Horton's Landing were from the track I might have spent my time a little wiser!

Changing the tree density around Blue Beach Road is easy enough!

Paul

[stem]

Running trains aloing this part of the line is quite cool with all the elevation changes from sea level at Horton to the summit. I never realized the elevations in this area but essentially it is the end of the south mountain range in the valley.

Don't know about anyone else, but I'm loving it.

If anyone else has yet to load up this route and getting running, you need to do this without delay. Paul has done an awesome job of giving us back the DAR in the palm of our hands and you should not miss the opportunity to experience it.

If you are technolocically trepid, fear not as all who are intrepid will happily lend a hand to get you up and running.

[Paul Charland]

Hi Steve and All,

I ran a gypsum train from Hantsport to Mantua and back this morning, have track laid to Brooklyn and just coming up on Mount Uniacke right now. At this rate might make Windsor Junction some time tomorrow.

I have a CN Bedford Sub route that has about 16 miles of track down, from a mile or so north on the CN towards Truru to about a mile west of the Halifax station. I thought I'd be able to import this as it's just track into the DAR route, after about forty hours of trying I realized trying to import it into the DAR route was taking longer then it did to lay this part to begin with... so, started back with b3.3 and have been working from there.

The trackage between the end of b3.3 and Hants East is temporary, but very close. I really won't know until the satellite shots are made available. Mount Denson is a challenge from both directions. Train 24 ran with only a single unit and getting a dozen or so cars up the hill is just about as much fun as getting twenty-two gypsum cars down the hill without breaking 30 MPH... no time to catch up on your sleep there. Not that the grade is ultra steep or anything, but it's long, cresting the hill you're down to the mid 20's for speed. More coastal scenery btween Hantsport and Mount Denson, the again between Falmouth and along the St. Croix to Brooklyn. Windsor east there's a lot of 'coming around the mountain' railroading... quite nice running up the sides of mountains, crossing a valley on a fill, then wrapping around the end of the next mountain.

Having fun...

Paul

[stem]

Yay! Can hardly wait to see the latest beta.