By TOM AYERS CAPE BRETON BUREAU The Chronicle Herald

Cape Breton Regional Municipality Mayor Cecil Clarke says the China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. is ready to invest millions of dollars in a feasibility and design study for a container terminal operation in Sydney Harbour. (TOM AYERS / Cape Breton Bureau)

SYDNEY — A large Chinese construction company has agreed to build a highly automated container terminal in Sydney Harbour, depending on the results of a feasibility study to be conducted next year, says the CEO of Harbor-Port Development Partners.

If it proceeds, the project is expected to cost more than $1 billion and take several years to complete, with operation possibly to start sometime in 2019, Albert Barbusci said.

China Communications Construction Co. Ltd. has agreed to design and build a container terminal and all related infrastructure around the municipality’s greenfield site in Sydney Harbour, Barbusci said in a telephone interview from Montreal.

Infrastructure could include the rail line, roads and possible business operations that support a container terminal, he said.

Work on a feasibility and design study has already begun and will continue with a site visit by Chinese officials early in the new year, said Barbusci.

That work will determine whether the project gets built.

Sydney, Nova Scotia – November 27, 2015 - The board of directors of Scotia Rail Development Society met on Wednesday to discuss the recent announcements concerning an agreement by Genesee Wyoming to resume rail service when the Sydney Container Port is operational. The board expressed support for the Mayor’s programme to develop a container port but they assume that such a billion dollar project will take six to ten years to develop. Their concern is that the railway service would simply be put on the “back burner”. Hence the society decided to continue its campaign to seek provincial and federal support for a railway in Cape Breton. The group has initiated a campaign to have 10,000 Cape Bretoners sign a petition of support for the railway. An on-line version of the petition can be accessed from the society website www.scotiarail.ca.

SYDNEY - Genesee & Wyoming forbids people from taking pictures near abandoned tracks.

The irony is not lost on members of the Scotia Rail Development Society.

As part of its mandate to raise awareness and develop economic opportunities to keeping the rail line open between Sydney and Port Hawkesbury, the society has sponsored a selfie contest that has now caught the attention of the line's owners, Genesee & Wyoming Canada Inc.

Harbor Port Development Partners and Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway to work together on the port of Sydney development project

Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, November 19, 2015 — Cape Breton Regional Municipality has recently officially granted Harbor-Port Development Partners (HPDP) the exclusive right to market the port of Sydney for development, including building the financial and operating consortium to construct a state of the art container terminal and logistic park able to accommodate the latest generation of ultra large container vessels.

Cape Breton & Central Nova Scotia Railway Limited (CBNS) is in discussions with HPDP regarding the possibility of providing future rail service on the line from Truro to Sydney, Nova Scotia, as part of the deep water port development project in Sydney.

Gord Seury holds up an ad in the Dec. 14, 1991, edition of the Cape Breton Post that featured his late mother, Alma, campaigning to save passenger rail service in Cape Breton. Seury was one of about 60 people who attending a working meeting of the Scotia Rail Development Society on Wednesday in Sydney.

SYDNEY — A quarter of a century ago, Gord Seury’s mother campaigned for the return of passenger rail service to Cape Breton.

On Wednesday, the 74-year-old Sydney resident was one of about 60 people who attended the latest meeting of the Scotia Rail Development Society, the local organization aiming to preserve Cape Breton’s railroad infrastructure in hopes of once again having trains roll across the island.

Seury said he showed up at the meeting at Sydney's Joan Harriss Cruise Pavilion because of his late mother’s love of the railway. And he brought a full-page union ad that appeared in the Dec. 14, 1991, edition of the Cape Breton Post. The ad featured a letter written by his mother Alma and included picture of her on the old tracks.

“She loved it, she would take the train a few times a year to visit family down the line and she made a few trips out West — she loved the train,” said Seury, whose mother died in 1995 at age 79.

“She did what she could do to save the service then, so I guess I decided to come out and see if I can help out now.”

The gathering was more of a working meeting than an open public debate about the future of rail transportation in Cape Breton. For the most part, those in attendance were already committed to the cause.