Description of Historic Place

The New Brunswick Railway Museum is a property on the east side of Main Street in Hillsborough that consists of a museum building that houses railway artefacts and an original section shed, as well as rolling stock and tracks.

Heritage Value

The New Brunswick Railway Museum was designated a Local Historic Place for the association of its location and collections with the railway history of Hillsborough and New Brunswick.

Hillsborough is fortunate its memory has been preserved by the New Brunswick Railway Museum. The imposing machinery, the memories of the colourful individuals who made it run and the excitement of a steam engine swirling into the station may still be enjoyed through the various on-site collections of artefacts and rolling stock. The main museum building, built to replace the station that was razed by fire in 1994, suggests the style of station building that would have been seen on rural railway stops throughout the province.

The Salisbury and Albert Railway chugged into Hillsborough station in 1877 and connected the village to the world for 105 years. It was a branch line from the first railway built in Eastern Canada, the European and North American line, which ran between Saint John and Shediac. Even before the line was completed in 1860, Hillsborough was enjoying a primitive form of rail service. In 1851 the, Hillsborough Plaister and Rail Road Company (“plaister” being an archaic word for plaster), was incorporated. It operated two wooden-railed, horse drawn tramways bringing albertite from Albert Mines and gypsum from the quarries to the Petitcodiac River for export. The gypsum tramway ran just south of the museum.

Like the majority of the railways built during the last half of the nineteenth century, the Salisbury and Albert Railway carried more debt and political intrigue than freight or paying passengers. Bankruptcy was always more of a threat than derailment. Mr. Amasa Killam launched the railway and floated it on a tide of borrowed money. The Honourable William Henry Steeves, who was New Brunswick’s first Minister of Public Works, arranged for a guarantee of ten thousand dollars per mile from the province while Albert County gave seventy thousand dollars; a bond issue of six hundred thousand dollars was sold in England. The charter was granted in 1867 to the Honourable John Lewis, the local member of the Legislative Assembly. Mr. Killam may have built this railway, but Mr. Abram Sherwood is the man who made it run. His able management from 1900 until 1913 kept the railway on its precarious financial rails. Mr. Sherwood’s house still stands at 3 Oxley Street in the village.

Visitors to Hillsborough can revisit the storied days of railroading. They can walk the rails through the station yard, board diner, passenger, baggage and freight cars, examine heavy rail equipment and an operational steam engine and enjoy the atmosphere of a section shed, complete with track cars and maintenance equipment, which were used throughout the Salisbury and Albert Railway’s long history.

Source: Heritage Hillsborough, William Henry Steeves House Museum, Local Historic Places files

Character-Defining Elements

The character-defining elements relating to the exterior elements of the Hillsborough New Brunswick Railway Museum include:
- single-storey rectangular massing;
- moderately-pitched gable roof;
- asphalt roofing;
- wrap-around awning with exposed rafters and large support brackets;
- double hung windows at gable end;
- double hung windows on all sides;
- cement foundation;
- collection of smaller railway-related artefacts inside the building;
- collection of tracks and various types of rolling stock on the grounds;
- original section shed.