Terminal Road

Last Saturday, I met a few friends down at the lower parking lot at Point Pleasant Park for a little photographic expedition. I wanted to take in the newly reconstructed walkway out to the end of the container pier, but for reasons unknown, it was gated off - possibly because of the impending weather event. Instead, we decided to walk the length of Terminal Road and see what caught our photographic fancy. Quite a lot, as it turned out.

We started by shooting over, through, and around the fence to capture the walls of containers in the Port.

As it turns out, there are quite a few of them.

The different colours of the containers added to their visual appeal, and it had also started snowing, which we worked into our photography.

At some point we noted that a train was arriving through the rail cut, just as the snow was intensifying.

As we got closer to the grain elevator, the old conveyor lines heading out to the piers caught our eyes.

Eventually, the gain elevator itself became our subject.

Between the rail cars in the foreground, the snow, and all the ducting running everywhere on the outside of the building, the engineer in me found it very hard to resist - and so I didn't. Many photographs ensued.

At some point the snow was getting rather wet and heavy, we were getting cold, and our camera gear was getting a bit on the wet side. We headed back to our cars, but not before I caught one last image of these traffic control signs placed ever-so-carefully in front of a red shed.

Everything on Terminal Road is very industrial, but I love that sort of thing, so our outing worked out quite well. We will likely go back sometime. Any maybe, just maybe, the pier walkway might be open that day.

Tatamagouche Train Station Inn

For our tenth anniversary year my wife and I decided to do something a little different, so we packed up the kids and headed to Tatamagouche to spend a night at the Train Station Inn. 

A collection of assorted rail cars sit on the rails outside the restored Tatamagouche Railway Station.

The station building itself closed in 1973, and was scheduled for demolition, before being saved and purchased in 1974 by current owner James LeFresne. He was only 18 at the time. The last train passed through in 1986, and the line was abandoned. Restoration of the train station began in 1987, and it was opened as an inn in 1989. Railway cars began arriving in 1994 in the form of two wooden cabooses, and they have since been joined by a number of other cabooses, a passenger car, boxcars, the 1905 Vice Royal Railway Car Alexandra, and sundry other artifacts. 

The interior of the passenger car has been converted to a restaurant.

We had our dinner in the dining car that evening - my steak was good, and my wife's Coquille St. Jacques was excellent. We discovered to our pride and dismay that our 5 year old likes scallops, especially when wrapped in bacon, which could get expensive and means we will have to share in the future. 

The interior of the Vice Royal car, now a lounge for guests of the Inn.

Exterior of the passenger car.

Most of the cars are located along the old main line, with two cabooses and a boxcar sitting on rails on the other side of the parking lot.

The Jitney Cafe sits at one end of the restored train station.

The next morning, we had our breakfast in the Jitney Cafe, which was much more crowded than shown here.

Caboose #9, #79575, was our accommodation for the night.

Though comfortable, our bedroom was shoehorned into one end of the caboose.

Original equipment remaining in Caboose #9 includes two conductor seats, still installed in the cupola, providing a view in both directions along the "train" and to the sides. The fore and aft windows are still fitted with window wipers, two manual, and two with motors fitted. 

The children had a great time climbing up and down from the cupola and sitting in the conductor's seats. 

Caboose #9 can accommodate a family of four, with the two kids in single beds at the opposite end of the car from the main bedroom. Two sliding pocket doors isolate the middle section of the car, where the cupola and washroom are situated, from the bedrooms.

Though not as comfortable as a modern hotel room, the caboose was certainly unique, and the entire family enjoyed themselves.