‘This thing is amazing’: model train setup re-creates Cape Breton’s rail history

A replica of the old railway route between Louisbourg and Glace Bay brings history to life.

A new model train unveiled at a Cape Breton museum aims to keep the rich history of rail alive on the island.

“It covers basically the whole layout of the S&L Railway,” said Fergus Francey, a volunteer at the Sydney & Louisbourg Railway Museum in Louisbourg, N.S. “That would have been 50 years ago, 60 years ago.”

A large diorama inside the museum re-creates the roughly 63-kilometer rail journey that used to be made regularly between Louisbourg and Glace Bay, N.S.

The train chugs past mock ups of an old coal mine, over bridges and through tunnels.

Francey - after a long career in the Canadian Coast Guard - has more time these days for his other passion, model trains, and he spent years building some of the set.

“I think I’ve got about 500 (model) trees on this layout that I have made by hand,” Francey said. “I came back to work on it again about a year ago and I kept on going - made the coal mine, the Mira Gut bridge, that bridge was another one of my creations. A lot of people have had their hands in this.”

The idea for such a grand-scale model train system was first floated about 23 years ago by members of the Sydney Railway Club.

After years of work, and a few stops and starts, this is the first summer the completed model has been fully open to the public.

“It blows me away - it blows everybody away,” said Carter Stevens, a member of the museum’s board of directors. “It’s something that every school system should bring in - bring their kids here - and see what we’ve done here.”

Rail in Cape Breton has been largely a thing of the past for more than a decade.

Whether or not real trains will ever hit the tracks on the Island again, this piece of local history - in miniature - brings what those days were like back to the present.

“What you see is what you get,” Francey said. “This thing is amazing - an amazing adventure. I’m glad for being part of it.”

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