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Rumford Falls and Rangeley Lakes Railroad was completed to Kennebago Lake in 1896 by way of Roxbury, Byron, Bemis and Oquossoc. MEC gave up on the 11 miles between Oquossoc and Kennebago in 1933. The Kennebago Bus Co. was formed to operate a rail bus between those two points as the track wasn't imme...

"Maine Central in Color Vol.2" (Plant and Melvin, 1999) page 23 states MEC 0-6-0 #168 was
last regular steam on railroad, covering yard shifts at Waterville into May 1954. Other references
in same book say PT steam was gone in 1950 and only occasional steam in road service by
summer 1952.

I worked on a project at the Knight-Cellotex mill in Lisbon Falls in 2000. At the time they were producing a very coarse, yellowish wood fibre product one or two inches thick cut into 4X8 foot sheets. I'm not sure of its use in that form- insulation board perhaps. Some of this product was impregnate...

I have no experience with regards to whether it helps crossing the border or not, but when I applied for and received my TWIC card a year ago possession of a passport was not a requirement. TSA required a valid state-issued drivers license/ picture ID and a birth certificate. A passport or a NEXUS c...

The memory of this old dub gets fuzzier by the day but I seem to recall that the MEC/SLR interchange at Yarmouth Jct. was closed as part of a deal between the two railroads and the State as part of the first "improvement" at Danville Jct.- the crossover between the two mainlines beyond the...

The operating paper machine is in the area next to River Rd. immediately north of the river, while coating and converting operation is mostly in the area bounded by the river, River Rd. and Warren Ave. Large parts of the complex are vacant or used for paper storage and are rumored to be candidates f...

The Sappi Mill in Westbrook no longer produces printing paper and has only one paper machine running. The pulp mill was closed and demolished a number of years ago and they currently buy open market pulp to produce "release paper" which is used in a plastic molding process. A plant employe...

Looks like an access road- there is what appears to be a driveway off it near the runway. I haven"t
been in there in ages but back when the Beecher Falls Branch was operational there was no road
access to Waumbec Jct., you went in by rail or hiked in on foot.

J.M.Huber operates an OSB mill in Easton. The former Pinkham Lumber Co. mill now owned by Irving has been closed for a couple of years. I thought there was another large saw mill in the area but the only reference i can find is for Maine Woods Co. LLC in Portage which is not familiar to me- may be a...

In reference to jbvb's mention of coded track circuits; coded track circuits are one way of transmitting control logic and returning logic confirmation thru the rails in a CTC installation which does away with the requirement of maintaining wires on a wayside pole line. Maine Central didn't use that...

As a follow up on signal spacing considerations; braking distance, track speed, traffic density and tonnage all factor into the calculations. Maine Centrals ABS was designed to allow trains in the same direction to follow one another on fairly close headways. Lengthening signal blocks pushes trains ...

I was involved with a steel job east of the Fairgrounds in 1977 installing 115lb stick rail in place of the old 100lb rail and seemed to remember ribbon rail being laid in places not too long after. Having transferred to the Mountain in 1978 I lost track of specifics, so this afternoon I was digging...

The is a photo book about the Poland Spring operation in the "Images of America" series by Arcadia Publishing which includes a few railroad photos including an 0-6-0 lettered Poland Spring RR with a shuttle at Danville Jct. I thumbed thru a copy at Borders in So. Portland a while back. The...

I believe Fairgrounds East is the current name for the east end of the passing siding, former MEC track 60,
extending from just east of the Route 202 overpass to just west of Strawberry Ave. in Lewiston.

The large transoceanic shipping companies decided better than 20 years ago to concentrate on fewer, larger ports. Their abandonment of St. John is a large part of CP dumping the line to New Brunswick- as stated earlier the steamship companies have a lot of say regarding traffic flows. I find it hard...