The Loggieville Water Tower

Back in the days of steam, water towers were a common feature beside railway tracks. Steam engines used vast quantities of water and they needed to refill frequently. After the end of main line steam in 1960, these towers disappeared quickly. Only a few remain… like the one in Loggieville, New Brunswick.

I was interviewed for a CBC article on an attempt to preserve the old railway water tower in Loggieville, New Brunswick. The reporter, Hannah Rudderham, emailed me and we talked while I was waiting in the airport for a flight home from Toronto. I had no idea there was a water tower in Loggieville! I had to do some research.

The Water Tower

According to a list provided by Conrad Steeves, the Loggieville tower was built in 1906 by E.A. Wallberg and has a capacity of 40,000 gallons. The photo at top is from Art Clowes’ collection and is dated 1966. Looking at the current photos of the

I didn’t know who E.A. Wallberg was, but a little research shows an “Emil Andrew Wallberg” who was an engineer, industrialist and the president of Canada Wire and Cable. This genealogy page (in French) says that Wallberg was employed by the Intercolonial Railway between 1903 and 1909, so it seems to check out.

The water tower is on land owned by the province. A local man, William Walsh, has been attempting to purchase the land and the tower to preserve it. There will be a lot of work to stabilize it.

You can see the tower here in Google Street View.

Walsh said that the town leased the tower from CN after the railway was done with it to fill its fire trucks. My guess is that the current exterior was added to keep the water from freezing, which is fairly common for Canadian water towers. I imagine the round tank is still there under the cladding.

History of the Loggieville Line

The Intercolonial Railway (ICR) was the first railway planned in the Chatham-Newcastle region. The Moncton-Campbellton section was completed in 1875, with the first train crossing the Northwest Miramichi River on October 19, 1875.

In anticipation of the ICR’s completion, the Chatham Railway Company was incorporated in 1872 for the purpose of building a railway from Chatham to the ICR, nine miles in length. Surveying was undertaken in 1873 and it was planned to parallel the existing road between Chatham and the community of Barnaby River, which was in the path of the Intercolonial. In the end it joined the ICR at Passmore Junction

Rails for the Chatham Branch Railway were reported to be in Moncton in early November 1875, and at the annual meeting of the railway on May 6, 1876 it was reported that two and a half miles of track remained to be laid. The Chatham station was under construction, and the intent was to open the road in early June 1876, although Poor’s Manual of Railroads indicates that it opened on August 1, 1876.

A note from the New Brunswick Legislature indicates that the Chatham Branch Railway was put up for sale by the sheriff of Northumberland county in the summer of 1879. There was also mention of a lawsuit! Regardless, the president (Alex. Morrison) and at at least one director (J.B. Snowball) were the same in 1876 and 1887.

The branch changed hands with the incorporation of the Chatham Railway Company in mid 1888, and that was purchased by the Canada Eastern Railway Company on July 1, 1890.

The line was extended from Chatham to Loggieville in the 1894-1895 time period.

The Intercolonial Railway took over the branch in 1904, after considerable discussion from 1898 onward. The 13.49 miles from Nelson Junction to Loggieville were purchased on October 1, 1904.

The Intercolonial Railway issued a tender in 1910 to build the “Chatham diversion” to eliminate the heavy grades between Loggieville and Nelson, and involved the construction of eight and a half miles of track and cost about $500,000.

Railway fever caught on in Escuminac, east of Loggieville, in 1917. The Northumberland County Council adopted a resolution to recommend that the Dominion Government build a railway from Loggieville to Escuminac. The railway never built past Loggieville.

By 1984, CN had applied to abandon several New Brunswick lines, including the 3.99 miles between Chatham and Loggieville. CN official David Butler was quoted in the Times & Transcript (July 13, 1984) that those 4 miles had seen no traffic in two years. There was a hearing on July 17 in the Loggieville Community Centre. The January 1985 issue of Branchline magazine that CN Rail received permission in decision 1984 10 24 to abandon the track between mile 9.50 and 13.49. CN had indicated that the line lost $59,786 in 1983.

The Loggieville Train Station

The photo above shows a large three-story building labeled “TERMINAL” and is dated 1910 and is from Art Clowes’ collection of New Brunswick train station photos. You can see the same building in the Provincial Archives’ collection dated around 1920, on Water Street.

In the John Denney Jr. photo earlier in the post, you can see a station beside the express train – considerably smaller than the “terminal” above

I wasn’t able to find anything on the train station(s) in Loggieville other than BTC order #123083, dated January 6, 1967, authorizing the CNR to remove the station agent and station building in Loggieville.

The Loggieville Roundhouse

The CN Record of Locomotive Repair Facilities dated December 10, 1942 shows that Loggieville had a five stall roundhouse, with a hand-operated 75′ turntable. There’s no trace of it now that I can see. I imagine the roundhouse was removed in the 1960s after the end of steam, if not sooner.

Passenger Service to Loggieville

Loggieville had passenger service from the Intercolonial Railway, and later the Canadian National Railways. The ICR schedule below shows two trains daily (except Sunday) each way, one express train (passenger only) and one mixed train (freight train with a passenger car on the end).

Twelve years later, there was more frequent service but only between Newcastle and Loggieville. I imagine that connections were made with the main line CNR passenger trains at Newcastle.

In the 1930s the “jitney” CN 15831 was observed on the Newcastle-Loggieville run. These self-propelled passenger cars featured a baggage section and a passenger section, and were propelled by a oil-fired engine driving a generator to drive the wheels. These cars were the predecessors to rail diesel cars (RDCs) and were cheaper to operate than conventional passenger trains, as they required less crew; ideal for branch lines like the Loggieville line. This page shows some examples.

The Daily Times of Moncton, NB reported on March 5, 1924 that the Canadian National Railways was going to run passenger service between Newcastle and Loggieville using a battery-powered passenger car. The CNR was sending equipment to charge storage batteries to Newcastle, and the town would supply the CNR approximately 100,000 kWh per year at a cost of 4 cents/kWh. Newcastle’s power at this time came from the NB Hydro Electric Commission plant in Bathurst.

By 1950, rail passenger service to Loggieville was replaced by bus service from Scotia Motor Transport, departing Newcastle at 07:35, 14:05 and 16:35. Taxis were provided for certain train connections.

Track Layout in Loggieville

The 1983 CN car control manual contains a diagram showing the tracks in Loggieville just before abandonment. These diagrams are not to scale.

There was one spur track to “LL 74” which is a “team track”; this is a raised platform beside the track where trucks can exchange cargo with rail cars.

Track “LL 75” was listed as a run-around track, which is a way for the locomotive to uncouple from one end of the train and transfer to the other end so it could pull the train back to Newcastle.

The 1942 photo above shows a similar track layout – team track on the left (where the boxcars are), station track, and the locomotive is on the third track.