Dominion Atlantic Railway Digital Preservation Initiative - Wiki
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Kentville Turntable
The Dominion Atlantic Railway's Kentville terminal employed a turntable to turn locomotives from its establishment in 1869 until the Kentville facilities were abandoned in 1993. The Windsor and Annapolis Railway built the first turntable and engine house at Kentville in 1868 south of the mainline. It consisted of a three stall engine house[1] and a covered turntable with an attached machine shop.[2] It burned in a fire on July 8, 1915.[3] A replacement roundhouse was built in 1916, north of the mainline near the Cornwallis River Bridge where DAR subsidiary the Cornwallis Valley Railway branched off for Kingsport. The six-stall roundhouse was built in the fall of 1916 by the DAR's Bridge and Building department led by foreman H. Dalton following their construction of small enginehouses at Middleton and Windsor.[4], with a manual 70 foot turntable serving the six stalls[5] as well as several outside storage tracks.
By 1920, the turntable included a Pilling Air Motor was installed in 1920.[6] The turntable was standard CPR design for a 70 foot half deck plate girder turntable, one of 60 of this model built by the Dominion Bridge Company and the Canadian Bridge Company for the railway across Canada.[7] (A similar model served the CPR's Kettle Valley Railway and its plans can be seen online in the footnote link.)[8] The turn table was rotated by a compressed air motor located under the control platform. It would be connected to the locomotive air hose by a normal glad hand connector. The engine was moved so that the there was some weight on the air motor's wheels, and then the air cock was cracked. The air motor chuffed loudly, slipping and sliding, but eventually doing its job.
The open door leading to the enclosed turntable behind "Lightning", a broad gauge locomotive at the W&AR Engine House and Machine Shop, 1872.
Detail from Kentville Track Schematic showing the 70-foot turntable in front of the Kentville Roundhouse, Kentville Machine Shop and Kentville Water Tower, circa 1920.
Kentville Roundhouse with numbered stalls, 1927. Locomotive No. 39 visible in Stall No. 5.
No. 544 on the turntable, circa 1930 with Kentville Roundhouse staff. The water tower stands at its first location by the turntable, before it was moved closer to the river.
Locomotive No. 470 on the turntable with the Kentville Water Tower and Yard Crane No. 3 in background, circa 1942.
Locomotive No. 2552 on the turntable with the Machine Shop and the Boiler Plant in background, circa 1942.
Locomotive No. 1090 on the turntable with the Kentville Water Tower in background, circa 1944.
Locomotive No. 470 on the turntable with the Water Tower in background, circa 1944.
Kentville roundhouse, turntable and machine shop from the coaling tower, 1940s or 50s.
No. 6227 in front of Kentville Roundhouse on August 27, 1956. Visible as well, boiler plant and smoke stack, turntable, water stand pipe, coaling tower and sanding tower.
turntable view of CPR No. 6227 at Kentville on August 27, 1956. Visible as well, boiler plant and smoke stack, water stand pipe and coaling tower.
No. 2526 arrives with Train No. 12 from Kingsport on Aug. 27, 1956. Visible as well, switcher No. 6227, water stand pipe, coaling tower, sanding tower, track crane.
No. 6227 in front of the turntable with the water standpipe behind on August 27, 1956.
No. 1038 between the turntable and the Kentville Roundhouse Sept. 1958.
The Kentville Roundhouse with locomotive 8139 on the turntable and a S-3 locomotive in the roundhouse, with the stack of the Canada Foods Plant in the background, 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with SW1200 locomotives, the Kentville Machine Shop and water stand pipe on left and a Pacific locomotive on far right, 1959.
No. 8131 and No. 8132 with the DAR machine shop and turntable on right, and car shops and power plant on left in August 1959.
turntable, power plant, car shop and No. 8131, from door of roundhouse in August 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with the Kentville Machine Shop on left and the water stand pipe, winter 1959.
The Kentville Roundhouse with diesels Nos. 8135, 8132, 8137, 8133, 8140, 8134, DAR Track Crane No. 3 and the Canada Foods Plant stack, June 12, 1960.
Kentville Turntable in front of Roundhouse with Kentville Railyard in background, May 5, 1976.
Looking out from the turntable into the Kentville Railyard May 6, 1976
Detail of turntable motor while VIA 6781 is turned for the Apple Blossom Special, May 30, 1987.
Kentville Roundhouse, turntable, south, east and north walls, 1990.
References and Footnotes
- ↑ Marguerite Woodworth, History of the Dominion Atlantic, Dominion Atlantic Railway (1936) page 64
- ↑ Alexander MacNab, Windsor and Annapolis Railway, Report of Alexander MacNab Nov 1, 1873, (1873), page 22
- ↑ "KENTVILLE HIT BY ANOTHER FIRE The D.A.R. Roundhouse and Engine Sheds Burned and Two Locomotives Destroyed", Digby Courier, July 9, 1915, Carl Riff Notes
- ↑ The Weekly Monitor, August 23, 1916
- ↑ Some sources say the roundhouse started with five stalls but a report in The Weekly Monitor, August 23, 1916 and a tour by a Halifax journalist in 1928 indicates 6 original stalls, with four added in 1926, Halifax Herald, May 1, 1928, Carl Riff notes.
- ↑ Canadian Railway and Marine World, "Projected Lines, Construction Betterments, Etc. Work in 1920", November 1920
- ↑ "CPR Standard 70' Turntable",C.P. Tracks, Vol. 4, No. 4 (Dec. 1994), p. 16-17
- ↑ [http://kettlevalleymodelrailway.blogspot.com/2015/03/cpr-70-half-deck-turntable.html "CPR 70' HALF DECK TURNTABLE", KETTLE VALLEY MODEL RAILWAY , Thursday, March 5, 2015]
