Painting
Sydney and Louisburg Railway Museum
Tous droits réservés.
| Nom de l'objet : | Painting |
| Artiste ou artisan : | Floyd A. Allen |
| Catégorie de l'objet : | Art |
| Matériaux : | Paint, acrylic Wood |
| Numéro d'accession : | SL-2006-01 |
| Autres données géographiques : | [45.9221352,-59.9713119] |
| Date de début de production : | 1981-01-01 |
| Date de fin de production : | 1981-12-31 |
| Description : | A steam engine approaches the Louisburg railway station during the winter. There are two men at the staion who seem to be preparing for the arrival of the train. Frame is mahogany and silver. |
| Commentaires : | Floyd A. Allen was born in 1902, and he is from Kingston, Ontario. He is an amateur artist who is interested in marine history, steamships from the Great Lakes, and the history of steam powered engines. He served as a skipper of the Phoebe from 1976 to 1986. Allen and his wife, Ann Burns, visited her birthplace Malguish and Gabarus Lake. This image is of the #45 steam engine approaching the Louisburg station. The #45 was built by Montreal Locomotive Works- MLW- in 1925. It was rebuilt in 1948. The colours and paint application verge on the realm of folk art. Allen has used perspective accurately and he has achieved depth in the sky. It is a playful, illustrative, amateur painting. The introduction of the railway to Canada occurred in 1827, when Richard Smith from Staffordshire, England, came to Pictou, Nova Scotia on the brig Margaret Pelkington. Smith, a mining engineer, brought on board mining machinery, boilers, cylinders, and parts for steam hoisting and pumping engines. He worked for the General Mining Association of London, England, which maintained control of the general mining leases in the colonies of Nova Scotia from 1827- 1858. Initially, the railways were made of wood and horses pulled the loads along the lines. Eventually, as more was invested into the railways, steel rails replaced wood rails. The first coal trains ran on the Albion Rail Road in 1839, on a two and a half mile route that soon became six miles long. Before trains, it was too challenging to try to develop the interior coal reserves. Mining prior to this time had been on a smaller scale; beginning with the arrival of settlers in the 1600s, outcrops of coal on the coast were chiselled at. In Cape Breton, during the later seventeenth century, there was a Parisian duty that needed to be paid for every ton of coal mined. The French would dig away at seams of coal that were exposed on the cliffs of the coast and load it into their boats. They also started to mine at Port Morien, which is also known as Cow Bay, circa 1720. When the French were defeated at Fort Louisbourg, the British Crown took ownership over mining rights. From 1758 to approximately 1827, King George III's son, the Duke of York, held these mining rights. The Duke's debts forced him to hand over his rights to what became known at the General Mining Association. The railway developed in northwest Nova Scotia and on Cape Breton Island as the coal industry advanced. The need to take the coal from its source to shipping piers was essential to the industry; commercial mines could only be operated if this was possible. Once the General Mining Association was obsolete, the coal industry was opened up to new companies and competition to go forththere were nineteen mines that supplied coal during 1858 to 1875. In Sydney, Cape Breton, the first railway track was put in place from Jacob Pit, in the Sydney Mines, to a shipping pier in North Sydney. One of the biggest problems with Sydney Harbour, and other ports and harbours, was that they iced over in the winter. It was impossible to have a year round coal industry when ships could not get into the ports to pick-up the coal. There were even attempts to make artificial harboursone at Big Glace Bay Lake, which silted up, and another at the mouth of Renwick Brook, which proved to be more successful. Many lines came to Sydneythe International Company had a line from a mine in Glace Bay to Sydney, and the Glasgow and Cape Breton Coal and Railway Company had one built as well. Once the interior coal fields were accessed by other coal companies, it became necessary to seek out an ice-free harbour. Louisbourg had a large, ice-free harbour, which had been a central point for shipping. In 1874, Frederick Gisborne, who hoped to make Louisbourg more active, was the engineer who directed the construction of the Sydney and Louisburg, twenty-one mile line. The line was constructed by locals, and itinerant workers and it had many obstacles and delays. It included thirty-two wooden trestles, thirty-five wooden culverts, and an iron bridge that crossed the Mira River. They also built a small hotel, an engine shed, a blacksmiths shop, and two houses in Louisbourg. Unfortunately, a fire in 1883 burned many of the wooden bridges and trestles, which stalled the use of the line until a later date. A major shift for the railway in Cape Breton occurred when the Intercolonial Railway mainline, having passed through New Glasgow and Antigonish, reached the Canso Strait in 1890. The strait was crossed by ferry, and on the other side, in Mulgrave, the continued rail transport went through central Cape Breton to Sydney. The official opening of the line took place on October 18, 1890. There was speculation that Cape Breton's coal industry would expand with the incorporation of the ICR. On February 1, 1893 the Dominion Coal Company, DOMCO, was incorporated. It was led by a Boston industrialist, Henry Melville Whitney, who was a supporter of the consolidation of eight coal companies in Cape Breton. He worked with the government and developed his proposal for a ninety-nine year lease of almost all the islands coal reserves. The proposal, which was accepted, also asked for the government to provide subsidies for the improvement of the railroads. There was only one major mine that remained separate from this conglomeration. The railway in Cape Breton was made more efficient, and the railroads were brought up to the same standard; they were linked by international track and it was extended. The Sydney to Louisburg line was rebuilt to be thirty-four miles long with a ten mile branch-off to Schooner Pond. It was stronger than the previous line because more of it was built with concrete and steel. It was finished in 1895. There was also a railway building that was built in Louisbourgnow the Sydney and Louisburg Museum, that was constructed in a manner reminiscent of the 'railroad style of the day'. It has a steep, pitched roof, dormers and gable ends, clapboard siding, and overhanging eaves that extend out over the four edges of the building. At the turn of the century the shipping industry was switching from wooden ships to steam vessels, and the demand for coal was prevalent. When the coal would arrive at the shipping piers it would dump down through a chute and into the holdings of a ship or barge. Small boats would take on coal as well. The S&L line was nicknamed the 'Slow and Lazy', despite it being one of the most active lines in Canada. The trains hardly went above twenty miles an hour and would make stops approximately every five miles. These stops were not necessarily based on the location of where people live, but were either 'Flag Stations'small stations with maybe a waiting room or a wooden platform, or full service stations. It was known as a 'neighbourly' line, and would provide the transportation for picnics or Blueberry specials. It would often stop wherever people needed to be let out. It also transported miners who would ride in what is known as 'man trains', fifty-foot long box cars with tall windows and wooden benches. The train would stop for people that flagged it down, and it would send out a locomotive in bad weather to make a run for a doctor or the hospital. The line was kept up by crews that oversaw different sections of iteveryday they would check the rails, roadbed, and switches. Throughout both World Wars there was a demand for coal. At the ports of Sydney and Louisbourg fuel and steel was provided. During the war years of the 1940s trains arrived to the international piers, every fifteen minutes, with coal. After WWII there was less of a demand for coal; in the first half of the 1950s approximately half the population of Canada used coalin the second half this dropped to twenty-five percent, as Canadians started to import cheap oil from the Middle East. The S&L was used less and lessthere was not the same market for the coal industry, modern ships could break ice, and people were u |
| Longueur : | 24 in |
| Largeur : | 18.5 in |
| Établissement : | Sydney and Louisburg Railway Museum |
| Ville de l'établissement : | Louisbourg |
| Province de l'établissement : | Nova Scotia |
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