1993 Abandonment
In the fall of 1993, CP Rail abandoned CAR lines in the Saint John River valley, including the CP Fredericton Subdivision. The York Street Railway Station was left abandoned with the other railway properties in the area, such as the Burtts Corner railway station and the Woodstock railway station. The tracks were removed by CP Rail in 1994. On January 1, 1995, CP Rail's remaining CAR operations in New Brunswick (including abandoned branch lines such as the one to Fredericton) were sold to the New Brunswick Southern Railway, a subsidiary of regional industrial conglomerate J.D. Irving Limited.
The Canadian Pacific Railway began operations on July 1, 1890, by leasing the New Brunswick Railway for a period of 999 years. The NBR Co. had been granted massive land holdings by the provincial government during its construction in the 1870s but CPR had little use for such property aside from the NBR Co's rail corridors. The timber lands were frequently leased to forestry companies, however in the 1940s, industrialist K.C. Irving (then-owner of J.D. Irving Ltd.) made an offer to CPR to purchase the NBR Co. for the timber rights and that CPR's lease for the rail corridors could be maintained with NBR Co. as a J.D. Irving Ltd. subsidiary.
When CP Rail abandoned rail service to Fredericton in 1993 and removed the tracks, ownership of the rail corridor and structures on former railway property was left with the NBR Co., a J.D. Irving Ltd. subsidiary. And the other J.D. Irving subsidiary, the New Brunswick Southern Railway - an operating railway company which took over providing rail service on remaining unabandoned CP Rail lines in the province in 1995 - operates its track through rail corridors owned by fellow subsidiary NBR Co.
Read more about this topic: York Street Railway Station
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