Tracks Across the Landscape: The S&L Commemorative History

T.D. Regehr is a professor of history at the University of Saskatchewan
and the author of The Beauharnois Scandal: A Story of Entrepreneurship
and Politics.

The Sydney and Louisbourg Railway linked the major coal-producing areas
around Sydney on Cape Breton Island with the all-season port at
Louisbourg. Coal bound for export was the main commodity carried by the
S&L Railway. Before the construction of modern roads, local people also
used the railway’s general freight and passenger services.

This commemorative history of the S&L, commissioned by the Sydney and
Louisbourg Railway Historical Society, is a curious amalgam of railway
history, local reminiscences, and folklore. The first three chapters
deal mainly with the construction and early history of the company,
while the seventh deals with its demise. The intervening chapters
provide a more general description of operations and the place of the
railway in the communities it served and in the lives of those who
worked on it. These chapters explain how a railway with only 37 miles of
mainline trackage but 27 official and any number of unofficial stops
could be regarded as both “slow and lazy” and “sure and loved.”

An appendix describing the various locomotives will be of particular
interest to railway buffs. A chronology provides a listing of dates and
significant events. Numerous illustrations and sidebars add greatly to
the appeal of this well-written and well-designed book.