Newfoundland and the Newfoundland Railway

Newfoundland and North Atlantic sea currents

You may be anticipating that I will explain why Newfoundland in general, and the Grand Banks in particular, were such a great areas for fish harvesting for 500 years :

Does it have something to do with the cool nutrient-rich water of the Greenland Current sometimes mixing with the warm flows from the Gulf Stream over the Grand Banks, supporting plankton growth?

Does the abundant plankton then nourish the smaller fish the cod prefer to dine on?

Were the numerous sheltered coves of Newfoundland excellent spawning areas for smaller fish?

As cod like to hang out within a few metres of the ocean floor, and like to spawn in cool waters, were the Grand Banks the ideal place to raise a cod family?

I don't know. Sarcastically, it seems no one knows the first thing about cod biology.

After 500 years - including 43 years of management by "experts from Ottawa" a (permanent, in practical terms) cod fishing moratorium was declared in July 1992.

A Newfoundland-born Canadian Federal Minister with overall responsibility for Canadian tidewater fisheries - supported by the best scientific advisors - provided the following sophisticated explanation to fisherman at Bay Bulls, Newfoundland ...

"I didn't take the fish out of the [G*D*] water! So don't go abusing me!"

The economic and symbolic importance of the Newfoundland cod fishery may have made it very difficult for the "win the next election" politicians and their advisors to err on the side of caution - much sooner - when less drastic conservation measures may have saved the resource. There's lots of blame to spread around.

It took 500 years, but we humans finally did it.

Update 2010 ...

Recent reflections on Marine Studies suggest some reasons for the stock's depletion. The peak catch occurred way back around 1967 ... it wasn't as if someone stole them all in the late 1980s. The bright new idea back in the 1970s was to ASS/U/ME that the total cod population of the area (x) would reproduce (y) fish. Theoretically then, if the government gave out permits for y fish (more or less) ... this would give the commercial fishery and the fish processing plants 'certainty' for their business and local employment plans. Sounds reasonable and sustainable. A real crowd pleaser. A win win situation at the end of the day ... as the politicians say.

The old timers fishing inshore in the island's little coves had a lot of practical experience fishing cod and although their observations were 'anecdotal' there was wisdom in them too. They observed that the big 'mother' cod were disappearing. It turns out that the cod which produce the most eggs at spawning time are older females which are physically larger. But ... on the Grand Banks the massive commercial nets were scooping up the big fish and only the smaller fish were escaping. Through 'natural selection' (the net holes) younger and smaller fish were being spared and the burden for reproducing the whole population was placed on genetically smaller fish and younger fish ... but not the 'big mothers' which were now on our dinner tables. So the reproduction RATE was decreasing and but no one seems to have noticed or understood.

Furthermore, it seems that 'THE COD' are not just a single population. Some sub-populations spend more time on the Grand Banks at particular time of the year. Some sub-populations spend more time in local coves. Different cod sub-populations had their 'OWN HOMES and TRAVELLING HABITS' and these would likely be variable from year to year according to water temperature, food, weather, you know - variables ... More variables than just x and y.

So it turns out 'we' didn't know as much as we thought we did about the cod.
Our guesses about x (population size) and particularly y (how many you can confidently harvest every year like clockwork)
were made in political-industrial expedience ... but in horrible ignorance of true the nature of cod.

In the end, the professional knowledge and ethics of the old-time inshore cod fishermen could have helped us ...

Sometimes nature is good to you and you have a good year.
Sometimes the fish aren't there and you have a bad year.

You must co-exist with the natural creatures and environment and respect the fact there are
some mysteries of nature which are not as easy to understand as one might think.

Twenty years later, in 2010, we have a big royal commission pending on the west coast because all our salmon are suddenly missing !!

You see, the fisherman were promised y salmon out the x quantity which fisheries experts expected to return ... and they didn't show up !!

Well shoot !

... I wonder why THAT happened ?

but getting back to our narrative ...

The Railway on 'The Rock'

From the 1860s, here is a civil engineer's opinion about the interior of Newfoundland - relating to how easy railway building might be in that area :

"a dreary waste of alternating rocky hills and ridges, with widespread barrens and marshes, intersected by innumerable foaming torrents, which, rushing through deepest, precipitous gorges, flow tumultuously into the many fiords and inlets which indent the southern shore"

... all right then ... I guess we'll keep the north side in mind if we ever build a railway around here.

Newfoundland maps are almost always pushed off the right edge of the page.
This well-worn map from the early 1920s is the best I could find to provide a quick overview of the railway's mainline :

Newfoundland in the 1920s showing the route of the Newfoundland Railway

The poor printing quality of this 80+ year old map shows the red line of the railway above the dots of the many settlements it created. Some branchlines are missing, but you get the idea that the railway went from St. John's, around the north to avoid the southern terrain, to the point closest to the mainland at Sydney, Nova Scotia. A ferry connection was set up between Port-aux-Basques and the Sydney area across Cabot Strait.

Two important centres which we will visit along the railway on additional Newfoundland pages - Corner Brook and Gander - do not appear on this map.

Here's a view of the still-active railway at Gambo in 1988.
In the photo, flowing from right to left, the water will reach Freshwater Bay and then Bonavista Bay on the Atlantic Ocean.

Built as economically as possible, but still creating economic crises for Newfoundland,
the railway had to get through some difficult terrain using the technology of the late 1800s.

Using a really cheap metaphor, the railway was a bridge:

from the unpredictable subsistence status of a fishing colony with many isolated outport settlements along the coast ...

to a more diversified and more industrial economy with increasing standards of living ...

to a role as a key military and civil aviation crossroads, requiring the latest technology ... and hosting a few US nuclear weapons in the process ...

to a point where the railway was made obsolete by the Trans-Canada Highway in 1965 and Canadian Confederation guarantees from 1949 to maintain the railway were eagerly exchanged for money to improve highways.

Looking at little more closely at the railway and some of its rare features:

Newfoundland Railway wooden boxcar, snowplows at Corner Brook

In misty dark Corner Brook in 1988 we are looking at some maintenance of way equipment stored in the railway yard.

The rare orange cars are snowplows, needed to deal with the large amounts of heavy wet snow dumped on Newfoundland during many winters - particularly at the higher elevations.

More rare ... than snowplows on Canadian railways in the 1980s is the wooden boxcar with plain bearings instead of "permanently lubricated" sealed roller bearings. With a plain bearing, carmen at each terminal must manually maintain a reservoir of oil at each axle bearing (8 per car) which is continuously spread on the turning bearing surface by a "lubricator" (like a fuzzy folded-up towel, wicking up the oil from the reservoir).

If the oil leaks away or if the lubrication is imperfect :

The axle bearing overheats.

The oil smokes and smells.

The oil and lubricator pad may catch fire.

And if the train is not soon stopped, the overheated metal axle end may break off causing a derailment.

Before radios, a crewman inspecting a passing train would hold his nose to signal that he had spotted a "hotbox". He might then touch his own head or tail end to show where in the train the defect was spotted - or he might draw his hand across his waist if it was in the middle of the train.

The crew in the passing caboose - if they had not already smelled or spotted the hotbox smoke from the cupola - would stop the train immediately and determine if the bearing could be fixed by adding oil or fiddling with the lubricator. Otherwise, the car would be closely observed as it was pulled gingerly to a siding or backtrack for heavier repairs by carmen.

Even on the interesting Newfoundland Railway it has been some time since this wooden boxcar was used for carrying revenue loads. Instead of scrapping old equipment, railways often use obsolete equipment to support track maintenance work.

Have you looked at the really rare track yet? Does it look normal?

Even in my too-dark photo you can see that the rails look "too close together".

Beginning with Britain, and continuing in the United States and Canada, the distance between the inside surfaces of the railheads is "always"
4 feet 8 1/2 inches (1.435 metres). This is referred to as "standard gauge".

There were some exceptions in North America and there are many exceptions around the world - both narrower and broader gauges.

Inspired by the War of 1812, Canadian railways were required to use a 5 1/2 foot standard after 1851 because it was too wide to be used by American railway equipment - to foil a military conquest. At the border, massing US troops, guns and supplies would have to be transferred to Canadian equipment of the correct gauge - assuming any would be left behind at the border for their convenience.

Once American invasion seemed less likely in the 1870s, the economic advantage of being able to ship a boxcar of apples or machinery directly from a Canadian railway to an American railroad, or vice versa, caused the Canadian railways to convert to standard gauge.

So why didn't Newfoundland start out with standard gauge in the late 1800s ?

Newfoundland railways used a British "narrow gauge standard" of 3 1/2 feet. This makes the gauge about 75% of standard gauge. American narrow gauge lines often used a 3 foot gauge. When the rails are closer together, the equipment is physically smaller. Narrow gauge was used because :

Newfoundland was a seafarin' society and proud of it, so even a cheap trans-Newfoundland railway was a waste of money as many Newfoundlanders saw it.

The railway was used to:

Open up the interior.

Pull out natural resources for export.

Replace travel by sea between Newfoundland settlements when sea travel was not possible, convenient, or safe.

... so the need to interchange cars with other railways was not a priority in the late 1800s when the first lines were laid. Exports and imports would still travel as ship's cargo.

The key "selling point" with narrow gauge is that it is cheaper to build :

The wooden ties don't have to be as long - and this adds up on a 547 mile long mainline.

Rock cuts, embankments and tunnels don't have to be as wide or as tall.

The rail can be lighter because the cars are smaller and each car carries less.

Bridges don't have to be built as heavily because locomotives are smaller and lighter.

Generally, the railway is more tolerant of being laid on the contours of the land.

Below is a shining example of track laid on the contours of the land :

At Gander Station the sun has set and the shiny railheads of the mainline follow the hills and sags of the countryside.
The rails at the airport spur switch need lining and surfacing which they will never get - they will soon be pulled up.
Trains have rolled by this location for 90 years.

Newfoundland's culture and history are unique in Canada.

The richness of the culture may be partly attributable
to the different types of isolation
and local sense of community
experienced by many Newfoundlanders through history.

Joining Canadian Confederation in 1949 was seen by many Newfoundlanders
as a mixed blessing at best.

Located beside a rich fishery, with an excellent natural harbour at St. John's,
and situated at the eastern extreme of North America,
Newfoundland has been a key transportation and communications crossroads for much of its history.

Like Newfoundland and its people, the Newfoundland Railway was unique.

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The Newfoundland Railway

... and some basic information about Newfoundland