In 2014, the rail-line owner estimated the cost to rehabilitate the line at $30 million (could be a little more today) to support freight train operating speeds at 35 miles per hour.
The first step, however, has to be getting the line back in shape and this must be done soon as decay and rot is taking its toll. Otherwise, I can find no other source in the Sydney area large enough to be the rail line’s anchor customer. However, many of these transfers are drop trailers ideally suited for rail and if these shifted from truck to train maybe a break-even rail operation could be established and grow. But there is no assurance whatsoever that this traffic, now by truck, would return to rail in part or in full. With the industrial base in Sydney now largely gone the only major potential rail user left would be transfers to and from Newfoundland.
The task now is to identify a future for trains without a container port. When asked about support for the railroad during the 2021 Nova Scotia election campaign, one premier’s office candidate replied: “If a case can be made.”Īt present, the railroad’s future in Cape Breton is locked on hopes of a container port for Sydney, but that is uncertain and in the last decade there have been few positive signs that this project will go ahead.