One Every Two and a Half Miles
A brief look at the railway stations on the Prince Edward Island Railway

by Allan Graham

(PART IV)

E. ADDITIONAL BRANCHES

Map of P.E.I. showing branch lines.

The original main line on P.E.I. went from Cascumpeque (now Alberton) to Georgetown with a branch to Charlottetown. However, branches had been completed to Souris and Tignish before the main line was really in use. Demands for other branches soon arose from every neglected Island hamlet. Some of these areas were fortunate enough to receive a railway branch and others weren't depending on political realities.

The first new branch to be built was one to Cape Traverse, the terminus for the ice boat service from Cape Tormentine, N.B. The Summerside Journal of Sept. 25, 1884 reported that "the Cape Traverse Railway is so far completed that trains are enabled to get all the way down to the wharf". This line branched off the main line at County Line Station (later Emerald Jct.) and included stations at Kinkora, Albany and Carleton Siding as well as Cape Traverse. Kinkora and Albany stations have already been discussed. The Cape Traverse station was a large house as can be seen in the photo.

An overview of the community of Cape Traverse as it looked between 
1885 and 1916; the railway wharf is on the left and the station and 
engine shed on the far right. (P.E.I. Archives Collection).

Borden station 1971. (Margaret E, Mallett photo).

The ice boats were really only reinforced row boats that were rowed through open water and hauled by shoulder straps across ice pans. When a proper ferryboat was provided by the Federal Government the port at Cape Traverse was found to be unsuitable and a new site was investigated. Carleton Point was chosen and breakwaters constructed. The contractors, D.R. Morrison and Son, reported in September 1916 that they had completed the building of the station and roundhouse at the new site. In November of the same year the Canadian Government announced the name of the new port would be Port Borden. German prisoners-of-war were brought in to build a roadbed to Borden and to remove the tracks between Carleton Siding and Cape Traverse. The old station at Cape Traverse was apparently hauled to Borden where it was divided into two small houses, both of which have since burned. The Summerside Journal of August 2, 1918 gives an excellent write-up on Borden:

At Borden, a great deal of work has been done and is in progress. The yard has been ballasted with material taken from New Brunswick and the construction of a coal trestle is in full swing. There is a fill of 9000 yards which is being completed by the Railway while a firm in New Brunswick is building the trestle. When the work is done, the mainland cars will be elevated to a height of forty feet above the narrow gauge cars which are to receive the coal. The railway has forty-five men at work at Borden with fifty Germans about a mile out and the contractors of the coal trestle have about thirty.

The new ferryboat carried standard gauge railway cars across the Northumberland Strait to Borden where the contents had to be transferred to narrow gauge cars before it could be sent across the Island rails. As mentioned in the quote above, a trestle and ramp were built to transfer coal. As can be seen in the picture of Borden yard in 1916 the contents of mainland standard gauge box cars had to be carried through a transfer shed from those cars into narrow gauge ones.

The station built at Borden was both practical and pleasing to the eye, a hip-roofed structure painted grey with white trim and a wide eave on all sides. The same jog in the eave can be seen over the freight shed door. This station can still be seen in its original site although several modifications have been made to the structure in recent years.

Vernon River station with a passenger car on
the siding 1940. (Keith Pratt Collection).

What had been a very quiet settlement called County Line (so named for it sits on the border between Prince and Queens Counties) suddenly became the booming community of Emerald Junction, the most important interchange point on the Prince Edward island Railway. The Summerside Journal of May 20, 1918 stated:

A new railway station is shortly to be built at Emerald. There will also be built at this now important junction a large transfer platform for the transferring of mails, passengers and baggage, and a general construction of the yard will be carried out.

According to the Summerside Journal of Jan. 14, 1924 the building would be finished in about ten days time. This structure is now used by the community of Emerald as a summer convenience store.

As Carleton Siding grew into a suburb of Borden, a new more modern and practical station house was constructed for C.N. by Harry Muttart. The only other Island station of this design was St. Charles near Souris. The Carleton Siding station is now a garage and the St. Charles station was bought by a resident of that area in which to build lobster traps.

1905 was a very busy year on P.E.I. The Murray Harbour Branch Railway was nearly completed with the contractors Schurman, Morrison and Mutch announcing that the stations would be finished before July of that year. No money was spared on this route which began in Murray Harbour and ended in downtown Charlottetown after crossing the Hillsboro River. The usual pattern for a community along this line was to have a station, a separate freight shed and an outhouse, all in a line along the same side of the track as in our postcard view of Murray River.

Other stations like Murray River were Hazelbrook and Vernon River. The station at Murray River is now part of a grocery store and after C.N. abandoned it, Hazelbrook station became a farm building. Vernon River station had been partially dismantled before it was burned by vandals.

A smaller version of the basic one storey design used on the Murray Harbour Branch is illustrated by the Mt. Herbert Station. The lake Verde Jct. Station was of a similar design.

Vernon Station on the Murray Harbour Branch was on a loop originating at Lake Verde Jct. and passing through Millview. The first traditional-style station in this scenic coastal community burned so a very practical structure was erected.

The section of the Murray Harbour Line from Murray Harbour to Kinross has now been abandoned but the remainder of the line sees an occasional freight. The Hillsboro Bridge is long gone, so all traffic must cross the so-called "short line" built from Maple Hill (near Pisquid) to Lake Verde Jct. in 1929-30 to avoid taking heavy freight cars and engines across the fragile and condemned Hillsboro Bridge. All Stations on this short line were flag stops. The Murray Harbour Line from Southport to Hazelbrook has also been abandoned and partially removed.

The community in Kings County, P.E.I., which was growing the most and showing the greatest potential was Montague and yet it had no rail service. So in 1905 a route was accepted and a line built from Georgetown main line leaving it near Cardigan at a place called Togo or Montague Junction. The site chosen for the traditional-style station and separate freight shed was on a ledge by the beautiful Montague River- no more captivating site could be imagined as our photo shows. The town of Montague has just acquired this station in 1984 and is operating it as a hospitality center for tourists to the area.

In 1912 a branch line was built from Harmony to Elmira, opening officially on Oct. 26 of that year. The most beautiful station on that short line was the terminus at Elmira completed (according to the newspapers of the day) before Nov. 23, 1911. It had separate waiting rooms for men and women (although one was used solely for card playing) and an agent's office. A separate freight shed and engine house completed the complex. This station is now owned by the P.E.I. Museum and Heritage Foundation which operates it as a museum in the summer months (see article in Canadian Rail Issue 259).

The last branch built on P.E.I. was from Linkletter, west of St. Eleanor's, to C.F.B. Summerside but no stations were built on this line.

F. NAME CHANGES

Several P.E.I. Railway stations had their names changed over the years. Here is a listing showing the original name on the left and the new (and still-used) name on the right:

Montrose became Alma
Baldwin’s became St. Teresa's
Dock Road became Elmsdale
Cemetery became Sherwood
Brae Station became Coleman
Kildare Station became St. Louis
Fitzgerald became Richmond
Rollo Bay Station became St. Charles
Barbara Weit became Clermont
Blueshank became Kelvin
County Line became Emerald Jct.
Cascumpeque became Alberton
Mill River Station became Howlan

With this list of name changes we complete our brief photo and word introduction to the architectural design and variety of P.E.I. railway stations. Much more could be said on this subject for dozens of variations exist on each of these designs.

Mt. Herbert station. (Harold Lloyd Collection).

Murray River station (Postcard copied by Margaret Mallett).

Elmira station at the eastern end of the line on P.E.I. (Margaret E. Mallett photo).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Special thanks to Margaret E. Mallett of Charlottetown who traveled with me all over P.E.I. in the early 1970's searching for railway stations, most of which had been moved from trackside by then. Without the photos taken by Margaret most of this article would have been impossible. Others to be thanked are Roy Leard, the Board of Directors of the Alberton Museum, the Provincial Archives of P.E.I. and particularly Nancy MacBeath, the Nova Scotia Archives, the Robertson Library at U.P.E.I., the Public Library at Confederation Centre, Keith Pratt, Allan Mac Rae and John Cousins. Lastly, I would like to thank my good wife Mary for her patience and support in this project.

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©1999, Allan Graham, all rights reserved.