Heritage and Culture
A number of DAR stations were restored for adaptive re-use such as a town library in Wolfville, a restaurant in Bridgetown and a museum in Middleton. Two stations, Hantsport and Wolfville, are federally protected buildings, designated since 1992 under the Heritage Railway Stations Protection Act.
Only one DAR steam locomotive was preserved, No. 999 Fronsac, at the Canadian Railway Museum in Delson, Quebec. The DAR's business car Nova Scotia is preserved privately as a restaurant in Orillia, Ontario while a passenger coach, No. 1303 Micmac, is preserved at the Canada Science and Technology Museum in Ottawa, Ontario. A snowplow and combine car (used for the Windsor-Truro mixed train service until 1978) are preserved at the Musquodoboit Railway Museum in Musquodoboit Harbour, Nova Scotia.
Strangely, the town of Kentville, once headquarters to the DAR, has shown little interest in the railway's legacy and turned down all offers to preserve equipment or buildings. The DAR's large 2-storey station housing the railway's headquarters was the oldest station in Nova Scotia and one of the oldest wood railway stations in Canada was demolished in 1990. In May 2007, the town of Kentville revealed plans to demolish the town's last surviving railway structure, the ten-stall roundhouse. The move triggered a protest movement led by such groups as the Nova Scotia Railway Heritage Society as it was the last such structure in all of Nova Scotia and one of the last in Canada; it was still in remarkably good condition and many organizations felt it could be converted for public or commercial purposes. Unfortunately it was demolished on 9–10 July 2007.
In addition to the Dominion Atlantic's major influence on tourism and heritage presentation in Nova Scotia, it also inspired several generations of writers. The noted Canadian poet Charles G. D. Roberts wrote a book of prose and verse sponsored by the railway in 1900. The Dominion Atlantic features prominently in the book Blomidon Rose, a nostalgic look at the life and landscape of 1930s Annapolis Valley by Esther Clark Wright. In the rural Canadian classic, The Mountain and the Valley by Ernest Buckler, the railway is used as an important symbol of change and the outside world. The Dominion Atlantic inspired poetry by noted Nova Scotian writer George Elliot Clarke, a wistful, erotic poem of youth entitled "Dominion Atlantic Railway" in his book Saltwater Spirituals and Deeper Blues
Read more about this topic: Dominion Atlantic Railway
Famous quotes containing the words heritage and/or culture:
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