Nova Scotia Roads - TCH 104/Trunk Route 4

and TCH 104/Trunk Route 4


Welcome to the province, have some eastbound photos. I stopped at the visitor center (centre, really) and I'd like to know how those people got to walk out to the lighthouse and I didn't. The supplementary sign for Exit 3 (still using a smaller font for secondary destinations, but failing at it) involves the Glooscap Trail, while the sign at the exit for Trunk Route 6 involves the Sunrise Trail.


NS 142 NB or EB (hard to tell which), one of the very short 100-series highways that in this case connects TCH 104 to Springhill. This is a very exciting photo for two reasons: It's the only case I've seen of an outline shield borrowing the same green background as the rest of the sign, and the ".5 km" is rather awkwardly patched over the word "MILE." That makes this sign well over 30 years old, before Canada went metric. To those in my generation or younger, it may surprise you that there was such a time - it just surprises me how recently they converted.


Exit 7: nothing off the exit except a boatload of routes and even more destinations. Nova Scotia does a bad enough job trying to arrange all the little awkward rectangles on the top of the sign, they should never have tried their hand at all the other words beneath. There must have been something here once for there to be so many covered white squares, but I saw no trace of development. Trunk Route 4 begins here, following the route of old TCH 104 for several km until Exit 12.


TCH 104/Trunk 4 across Sutherlands River. This classic bridge is not much longer for the world, as four-laning of TCH 104 continues. Exit 27A to the west (where 104 and 4 come together) and Exit 27 here will become grade-separated, likely diamond interchanges.


WB across the same river and through the same construction. The river crossing has yet to be constructed, but they'd better hurry because the current one is certainly not in great condition.


West of Trunk 4, the construction continues, and continues, and continues some more, all the way past Exit 26 until New Glasgow. That makes about 7 miles or 11 km of construction, and most of it's ready to go. It's so ready, all the signs are up and it's striped for two-way traffic while I suppose the existing lanes (future WB lanes) are repaved or reconstructed. By the time you read this, it may already be happening.


Enjoying construction? Have some more, west of Antigonish in the Exit 31A area heading EB. There's 2-3 km of uncontrolled access approaching the town, and this work will eventually do away with it. Trunk 4 is once again along for the ride.


In the first photo in Aulds Cove, Trunk 4 WB leaves in 750 m. In the second photo, TCH 104 just passes over it north of the end of Trunk 16. Like the sign way up on top of the page, this has "2 km" pasted over 1 mile. Interesting that 1 mile was only 1.5 km when measured along NS 142.


Another interesting WB sign, which was pieced together from a different sign. Trying to put the panels together, I gather that North Sydney and the Nfld Ferry were ahead (I assume the arrow is right side up, because all the other panels are), and the distance looks like a multiple of 100 ft. One of the best puzzles I've ever tried to solve.


Crossing the Strait of Canso to Cape Breton Island in the dead of night. TCH 104 ends on the far side, Trunk 4 continues on the eastern route to Sydney, and TCH 105 carries the Trans-Canada designation on the western route to Sydney Mines.


WB across the Strait of Canso and the beginning of TCH 104. There's a short stretch of NS 104 off of Trunk 4 on Cape Breton Island, the only part that doesn't carry the TCH designation. It's a stub freeway at both ends, suggesting that there were and possibly still tentatively are plans to extend the freeway along the eastern route, perhaps even as far as Sydney. If that were ever to happen, I still think NS 105 would retain the TCH designation because it runs directly into the Newfoundland ferry.


This dude just hangs out on the west side of the bridge.

Onto Trunk Route 4 alone (partly former TCH 104)

Into New Brunswick on TCH 2
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