[2] The company is still legally incorporated and files annual returns with the Nova Scotia Registry of Joint Stock; its headquarters are now in Calgary, Alberta.

In 1905, the DAR purchased the Midland Railway, giving a more direct connection between Windsor and the ICR at Truro, where lines headed east to Pictou and Cape Breton Island and west to New Brunswick.

Influenced by promotional themes from Yarmouth steamship companies, the DAR developed an identity as "The Land of Evangeline Route" exploiting interest in Henry Wadsworth Longfellow's poem about the Acadians.

The DAR purchased land at Grand Pré in 1917 and built a large garden and replica church dedicated to the memory of the Acadians.

The DAR maintained a strategic link between Halifax and the Bay of Fundy and Gulf of Maine ports of Windsor, Digby and Yarmouth.

The new owners allowed the DAR to retain its independence in operations and corporate identity for many decades, making it "the most famous railway in the province".

Graham built the Grand Pré Park and built a chain of DAR railway hotels including the Digby Pines Resort, the Cornwallis Inn in Kentville (long converted to apartments and commercial space before being renamed Main Street Station in 2022)[9] and the Lord Nelson Hotel in Halifax.

It shipped large numbers of troops from the major Canadian Army training base near Kentville (Aldershot Military Camp).

[11][12] The DAR's importance increased in the Second World War as it was the sole railway serving HMCS Cornwallis, a Royal Canadian Navy training and operations base on Annapolis Basin, RCAF Station Greenwood at Greenwood and RCAF Station Stanley at Stanley, as well as the Aldershot Military Camp.

The railway also saw CPR introduce two Budd Company Rail Diesel Cars (RDC) in August 1956 to reduce operating costs of its passenger services which had previously been conventional trains hauled by steam locomotives.

The DAR's steamship services on Minas Basin and the Gulf of Maine were abandoned, although the company maintained the passenger/auto ferry connection between Digby and Saint John.

[14] During my years of traveling from my home town of Truro to Acadia University in Wolfville (1969–1974) I learned that passenger service was about to end on the DAR.

The passenger car being too old and too sooty, I traveled in the caboose and ate my breakfast with the train crew.By the 1970s, the DAR was starting to see its operations west of Kentville reduced to branch line status.

CPR began reducing its passenger service to minimal levels between Halifax-Yarmouth and Windsor-Truro upon construction of the parallel taxpayer-funded all-weather Highway 101 between Halifax and Kentville after 1970.

[15] The only bright spot for DAR was in gypsum traffic, a mineral that was quarried just east of Windsor and hauled to expanded port facilities at Hantsport; it was in high demand throughout the post-war years during the North American housing construction boom.

Via also introduced refurbished Budd RDCs, and began a modest promotional campaign which included reviving the name Evangeline, drawing on Acadian history, a longtime focus of DAR travel.

By 1984, Via reported that traffic in its Halifax-Yarmouth service had quadrupled to an average of more than 100 passengers per trip, eclipsing most of the decline experienced in previous decades.

The Evangeline would continue operating until January 15, 1990, following a massive cut in funding to Via's branch line services ordered in the 1989 federal budget by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney's government.

The fate of any possible resurgence in freight and passenger traffic on the tracks west of Kentville was sealed with the construction of final links in the all-weather Highway 101 between Kentville and Yarmouth in the mid to late 1980s; in addition, there were several large steel bridges on this section of the railroad that were nearing the end of their maintenance lifecycle, thus requiring major expenditures.

In the January 15, 1990, cuts to Via Rail by the government of Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, the RDC service between Halifax and Yarmouth was abolished.

Although the New Brunswick-Quebec section of CAR would actually be abandoned for a short period at the end of December 1994, the DAR was sold to Iron Road Railways, owner of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.

[17] A number of DAR stations were restored for adaptive re-use such as a town library in Wolfville, a restaurant in Bridgetown and a museum in Middleton.

Strangely, the town of Kentville, once headquarters to the DAR, showed little interest in the railway's legacy and turned down all offers to preserve equipment or buildings.

[22] In addition to the Dominion Atlantic's major influence on tourism and heritage presentation in Nova Scotia, it also inspired several generations of writers and artists.

The Dominion Atlantic features prominently in the book Blomidon Rose (1957), a nostalgic look at the life and landscape of 1930s Annapolis Valley by Esther Clark Wright.

[26] The noted Canadian painter Alex Colville drew inspiration from several DAR trackside scenes for several major works including his painting "French Cross" and "Dog and Bridge".