Apple Trains

Apple Trains

Apple freight was a staple of the DAR. Apple traffic helped build the DAR and the DAR built the Valley's apple industry from a small side crop to a major international export. Britain was the world's largest importer of apples and in the 1903s, one out of every ten apples sold in Britain came from from Annapolis Valley farms via the DAR.(2) The loss of the British export market during World War Two crippled the apple industry and greatly reduced DAR freight traffic from the 1940s onward.

Operations

From September to April, apples were loaded at 150 apple warehouses along the DAR. Local trains brought them to Kentville to be marshalled into freights bound for steamships in Halifax. In peak seasons, this produced massive double-header 50 boxcar freight specials, as many as six special trains per weekend, requiring an extra switcher locomotive in Kentville and extra CPR vans from Montreal.(1)

Rolling Stock

The DAR used standard 36 and 40 foot boxcars in summer and early fall. During the winter when freezing temperatures arrived, a large fleet of specially adapted insulated boxcars were used for apple service, the 69900 series, as well as refrigerated boxcars with charcoal heaters.

<Gallery> Image:Apple Train Halifax 1925.jpg|Apple train in Halifax in 1925. Image:Sheffield Mills.jpg|Typical DAR scene, circa 1930: small country station with giant apple warehouses. Image:CDCDA Apple Warehouse Thumb.jpg|Centreville Station surrounded by apple warehouses. Image:CDCDA Tracks.jpg|Apple barrels piled by the station at Centreville. Image:CDCDA train2 thumb2.jpg|A double header apple train in Centreville. Image:Apple warehouses.jpg|Map by Willard Longley showing apple warehouse locations in 1931. </Gallery

References and Footnotes

(1) Kentville Advertiser, Mar. 25, Sept. 9 and Sept. 16, 1937 (2) Some Economic Aspects of the Apple Industry in Nova Scotia by Willard Longley