Dominion Atlantic Railway
 |
|
| Reporting mark | DA |
|---|---|
| Locale | Nova Scotia, Canada |
| Dates of operation | 1894–1994 |
| Track gauge | 4 ft 8 1⁄2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge |
| Length | 288 miles |
| Headquarters | Kentville, Nova Scotia |
The Dominion Atlantic Railway (reporting mark DA) was a historic railway which operated in the western part of Nova Scotia in Canada, primarily through an agricultural district known as the Annapolis Valley.
The Dominion Atlantic Railway was unusually diverse for a regional railway, operating its own hotel chain, steamship line and named luxury trains such as the Flying Bluenose. It is credited with playing a major role in developing Nova Scotia's tourism and agriculture industries.
The DAR's corporate headquarters were originally located in London, United Kingdom, until 1912, followed by Montreal, Quebec, but was always operationally headquartered in Kentville, Nova Scotia, where the railway retained a unique identity and a high degree of independence until the end of the steam era. A depiction of Evangeline from the poem Evangeline, A Tale of Acadie published in 1847 by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was incorporated into the DAR logo along with the text 'Land of Evangeline Route'.
The company is still legally incorporated and files annual returns with the Nova Scotia Registry of Joint Stock; its headquarters are now in Calgary, Alberta. Portions of the line were operated by the Windsor and Hantsport Railway until 2011.
The DAR was created on October 1, 1894, through a merger of two end-to-end systems. the Windsor and Annapolis Railway (W&A) and the Western Counties Railway (WCR). The larger and more successful W&A bought out the rival WCR for $265,000. The merger was authorized by the provincial legislature in 1893.
The W&A owned the track between its namesake port towns of Windsor and Annapolis Royal, and had also negotiated trackage rights to operate over the Intercolonial Railway's former Nova Scotia Railway "Windsor Branch" between Windsor Junction and Windsor, as well as on the IRC mainline from Windsor Junction into Halifax. The WCR on the other hand, operated between Yarmouth and Digby. The new DAR thus had a gap in its trackage between Annapolis Royal and Digby, which would otherwise be continuous from Yarmouth to Halifax. The gap was eventually closed in the early 1890s with government assistance.
...
Wikipedia