Sable River Railway

By Colin J. Churcher

The Sable River Railway was located near Sable River, Shelburne County and operated for ten to fifteen years. In 1904 a five mile long pole railway was built using wooden poles as rails.

The Sable Lumber Company was incorporated on June 21, 1907 with a head office in York Village, Maine.  During the fall and winter that followed lumbering operations began under the directions of William S. Hall, the Company’s Nova Scotia agent.  The pine timber from the interior of Shelburne County was cut into lumber to be used as box shooks by shoe companies of New England.  In order to bring out the timber, work began on the railway link, as ties were cut and the road prepared about a mile or so from the Halifax and South Western Railway.

Construction of a proper railway began with the arrival of used 56 pounds per yard rail from a dealer in Saint John, N.B.  The main line was twenty miles in length and ran from Wilkins Siding on the H&SW inland to several mill sites.  Short spurs, built for temporary use, were constructed up to two miles in length.  When the timber was exhausted on one site, the rails were taken up and a new spur built.

The pine timber was sawn at the various mills, then hauled to Wilkins where it was air dried before being hauled on flatcars by the H&SW to Liverpool, from where it was shipped to Boston.  This operation was followed for about ten years, except for the establishment of a mill near Wilkins where the lumber was edged and cut to length.  In addition to the 18 mile main line to Rush Lake there was a main branch line about five miles from Wilkins to Loon Lake, over which about ten carloads of lumber per day was hauled.

The rolling stock had link and pin couplings and there were five locomotives.  One of these was a shay, about 40 tons, called “Glory B” while a smaller, 30 ton shay was known as “Old Jerry”.  There were two Porter 0-4-2 saddle tanks as well as a 2-2-2 inspection locomotive with an overall cab.  It came from the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railway and was reputed to have been built in Belgium.  All five were coal fired and the usual crew consisted of two men, an engineer and a fireman/brakeman.

In 1911, the company reorganized and was re-incorporated on November 27 with Head Office in Boston.  In December 1917, all activity stopped with the track taken up by the spring of 1919 to be sold as junk.  By January 1919 the last of the locomotives were run up on to a flatcar and shipped to Québec.  The company was wound up on April 16, 1920.

The Sable River Railway may have been narrow (42”) gauge as at least one of the locomotives is known to have been constructed to that gauge.  The roster is as follows:

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©1998 Colin J. Churcher, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, please visit my railway pages at: http://infoweb.magi.com/~churcher/ , all rights reserved.