Good Bye, Boys
“Hold up the Trains.
Munitions ships for fire and making for Pier 6 … Goodbye Boys.”
Vincent Coleman worked at the station in the Richmond rail yards, a few hundred feet from Pier 6 where Mont-Blanc drifted ashore in flames. Warned of the ship’s explosive cargo, he returned to his telegraph key to stop incoming trains. He was killed by the blast but his message was heard by every station from Halifax to Truro, alerting the Canadian Government Railway to the imminent disaster. The railway responded quickly, sending six relief trains to Halifax the day of the Explosion with medical help and firefighters from Nova Scotia and New Brunswick. The first trains entering the city after the blast met heavy damage at Africville and devastation at Richmond where the tracks ended.
