On the screen is a slide with photographs of a padlock that has seen much better days.

“This padlock was found at the railway roundhouse in Kentville,” Kelly Bourassa said. “As you can see, the photograph on the left shows a heavy layer of rust, sand and soil. The photograph on the right shows the same face with all this material removed.”

At the monthly meeting of the Kentville Historical Society, Bourassa was using slides to illustrate how conservators work to restore and preserve artifacts that otherwise might have been lost. The lock was one of some 40 items dug up at the roundhouse site in Kentville when it was torn down in 2007.

“Once the lock was cleaned, we could see CPR initials,” Bourassa said. “This helped to date the lock since we know that the Dominion Atlantic Railway was taken over by the Canadian Pacific in 1917.”