June 14: Nova Scotia at last

[kirkcudbright]

Train Station Inn, Tatamagouche, Nova Scotia. The story is something like this: an 18 year old buys a disused train station, to prevent demolition. He opens a 3-bedroom B&B inn, and eventually gets the idea to bring in cabooses, and convert them into further guest accomodations. This requires an act of the Nova Scotia legislature, the Train Station Inn Cabooses Act.

This is our room, #4, a.k.a. Canadian National #79092, one of the first two cabooses here.





Dining car, previously VIA passenger car #7029. The cars are coupled, so our bathroom looks into the restaurant kitchen. The orange car just visible at the right is Vice Royal Railway Car Alexandra, used by the Governor General, Prince of Wales, and other dignitaries in its time.



Millrace and (non-functional) overshot wheel of the Balmoral Grist Mill museum. Nowadays the machinery is powered by a large electric motor, except that they were doing repairs when we were there, so nothing was running.





Little Narrows cable ferry, Cape Breton. The pilot let us ride across and back for free.



Alexander Graham Bell Museum, Baddeck, Cape Breton. In addition to the telephone, Bell experimented with aeronautics (including large tetrahedral kites, and the first powered flight in Canada), hydrofoil watercraft, and the first metal detector (to try to find the assasin's bullet in President James Garfield's body). He also co-founded Science magazine and the National Geographic Society.

Comments

[clara-girl.livejournal.com]

made of awesome:

Train Station Inn Cabooses Act

i wonder how often it's invoked? :)

i love trains. this is totally made of awesome.

[foms.livejournal.com]

My family owned a caboose that we moved to a plot of about a hundred acres of brush just outside Acton Vale, Quebec. We kept a Franklin stove in it for heat. Fun times climbing around in the cupola.

I think that we may still have some Balmoral Grist Mill flour in the freezer.

[gatewaygirl.livejournal.com]

It's kind of an "obsessed geek makes good" story.

[eclecticavatar.livejournal.com]

A friend of mine bex77 pointed me to your travel entries on Nova Scotia. I'm planning a trip there in October of this year, mostly Cape Breton. I was thinking of doing the train inn, as well! :)

[kirkcudbright.livejournal.com]

I hope you enjoy it as much as we did!