Walking through Irishtown Nature Park, on the northern edge of Moncton, the winding path suddenly straightens out.
According to historian and Roadside History columnist James Upham, it isn’t a coincidence.
“We could look at this as like a park design approach to brutalism in some fashion or another, which it’s not,” Upham said from the straight, flat pathway inside the park.
“It’s a railway — it’s an abandoned railway, and it’s the railway that kind of shaped this area that we’re in right now.”
The Moncton and Buctouche Railway, as it was called, was chartered in 1883 and opened in 1887, said Upham.
At that time, New Brunswick did have some roads, but Upham said in today’s context, they would be some of the roughest dirt roads you could imagine.
“It’s really hard to get our heads around from a modern context, of sitting in air-conditioned vehicles going along at 100 and some odd kilometres an hour down a highway,” Upham told Information Morning Moncton.
“There’s kind of a famous line from the early 1800s from New Brunswick to say that, you know, at that time, there was less than 10 good miles of road in the province, and they weren’t consecutive.”
That’s why, Upham said, if someone needed to get somewhere efficiently or move something from one place to another, the Moncton and Buctouche Railway did the job.
The railway made such a big difference that in the area that later became known as Saint-Antoine, businesses moved to where the train passed through.
“The community itself changed and adapted and sort of molded itself around this railway,” said Upham.
“In Bouctouche itself, the railway station that was the terminus for this rail line there, it doesn’t exist anymore, but it still has its own historic site.”
For decades, the train chugged on, moving cargo and traffic from Point A to Point B. Upham said it didn’t close until 1965.
He said trains revolutionized the ability to travel. What would now be considered a short drive would once more likely have been a trip that people “might not necessarily ever want to repeat again.”
“It used to be that if you’re wealthy, you didn’t go anywhere — people came to see you because it was such a pain in the butt,” said Upham, adding that travel for fun or enjoyment didn’t exist.
“People tend to sort of think of locomotives and steam engines and stuff and even diesels, to a certain degree, as being kind of like old timey … and it was just an absolutely massive step into the future.”
Information Morning – Moncton12:01Roadside History: Irishtown Nature Park is home to a railway line from the 1880s
James Upham is Information Morning’s Roadside History columnist.
