class Jm #618 in Hantsport Mineral Railway patch-paint

In 2021, the Hantsport Gypsum Company was formed to purchase & reopen the old Fundy Gypsum mines southeast of Hantsport, and when deciding between a long conveyer belt & reopening the old Windsor & Hantsport Railway between the Mantua mines & the dock in Hantsport, made inquiries about putting the railway back into service.

The LT&L, leaping at the chance to reactivate another no-hope railroad branch, purchased the W&H, then rebuilt and electrified the the section between Mantua & Hantsport (Windsor to Windsor Junction had passed back into the hands of the Canadian National and had been (even more) unmaintained for 12 years; Hantsport to New Minas was still owned by the W&H, but it is in extreme disrepair due to large chunks of it being illegally converted to a rail trail. A few of the formerly online shippers are politely interested in getting rail service back, but the railroad would need to reclaim & rebuild either the Windsor to Windsor Junction or Truro to Mantua lines, so the LT&L said it would be undoable without a large construction grant from Nova Scotia.

(This is why the line is electrified; a short isolated railway is easier to keep running with electric power, and the extra CA$15 million to put up electrification was less than half the cost of rehabilitating this line)

The operational stub of the W&H is still officially a common carrier, but it was renamed to the Hantsport Mineral Railway because of what it moves for its only customer.

  • Copyright © 2024 by Jessica L. Parsons (orc@pell.portland.or.us) unless otherwise noted
    Mon Sep 09 15:27:29 PDT 2024