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The Chignecto Ship Railway is a historic Canadian portage railway located in Cumberland County, Nova Scotia. The project was first proposed in 1875 by notable civil engineer Henry Ketchum as a means to transport ships across the Isthmus of Chignecto, shortening the sailing distance between the Bay of Fundy and the Gulf of St. Lawrence by avoiding the necessity of sailing around Nova Scotia. A canal had been proposed for the isthmus but financing was proving difficult to secure. Ketchum submitted his proposal to the Government of Canada in 1881. In 1882 the Chignecto Marine Transport Railway Company was incorporated as a federally chartered railway. It was financed by Baring Brothers and Company, London. ==Design== The ship railway was designed to carry vessels weighing up to 2000 tons with a proposed transit time of 2.5 hours. Ships would be carried on a cradle forming an extremely wide rail car that straddled parallel twin standard gauge railway tracks, separated by to the centre of each track. The tracks were built on a route that was almost perfectly straight for a distance of between the southwestern terminal on the Bay of Fundy, located at Fort Lawrence and the northeastern terminal on the Northumberland Strait, located at Tidnish Cross Roads. At each terminal the twin railway tracks descended on an incline into a stone-lined basin similar to a drydock which ships would float in and out. Each terminal had a lifting dock containing a steel grid measuring by connected to 20 hydraulic jacks. The grids supported the cradle which carried the vessel. The cradle was pulled from the lifting dock by hydraulic power and was then pulled along the length of the ship railway by 2 steam-powered locomotives. The terminal at Tidnish Cross Roads was located on Baie Verte and had a moderate tidal range and was protected by two breakwaters. However, the terminal at Fort Lawrence was located on Cumberland Basin at the discharge point of the Missaguash River on the inter-provincial boundary with New Brunswick and had a high tidal range, necessitating the construction of a lock to accommodate different water levels. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Chignecto Ship Railway」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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