NH Maine Passenger Service (with B&M/MEC/PRR/NYC)

If the boaters couldn't tell the New Haven how many trains they could run over their railroad, what made the boaters change their minds when Amtrak came along?

(a) Lots more recreational boaters these days than 40+ years ago.

(b) The general empowerment of loudmouthed NIMBYs by the courts and government regulatory agencies.

eastwind wrote:If the boaters couldn't tell the New Haven how many trains they could run over their railroad, what made the boaters change their minds when Amtrak came along?

Sorry if this is O/T.

I think the issue ended up being decided by the Coast Guard which has regulatory authority over navigable waterways. They tried to come up with a balanced solution that didn't favor either party to an extreme.

gokeefe wrote:

eastwind wrote:If the boaters couldn't tell the New Haven how many trains they could run over their railroad, what made the boaters change their minds when Amtrak came along?

Sorry if this is O/T.

I think the issue ended up being decided by the Coast Guard which has regulatory authority over navigable waterways. They tried to come up with a balanced solution that didn't favor either party to an extreme.

Would imagine the Navy had a say, too. Naval Station New London is upstream of the Thames River bridge.

The Navy certainly had a hand in the agreement, but their needs are occasional as-needed openings (for subs and occasional other ships) that occur on weekly or monthly basis, rather than multiple times per day.

Over the past couple of months I have had a number of adventures related to my interest in rail from both a historical and public policy standpoint. Among several delayed reports that I have wanted to write when I was rested and could "do it justice" is this one of my visit to the ex-SR Spencer Shops in Spencer, NC while in the area visiting family. After some polite inquiries I was able to take a private tour of ex-NH 553, Pullman Sleeper, 6 DBR - Buffet - Lounge, Pine Tree State (PPCX 800236).

We visited Spencer, home to the North Carolina Transportation Museum the day after Thanksgiving. They were running their annual "Santa Trains" and had a very nice arrangement were the ticket included a train ride and a visit by Santa and a small gift and snack for for each child riding the train. The train ride is an interesting movement that makes you realize at once how big the complex really is. Moving slowly the train travels from one end of the shop yard, reverses and then travels back to the other end. The total trip time is an astounding 40 minutes, which really makes you realize just how big the shops really were, even when you factor in train speeds that were probably no more than 15 MPH.

After making a series of discrete and polite inquiries and then waiting patiently the stars eventually aligned, probably helped by the fact that I mentioned that we had come down from Maine (of course reassuring the staff we hadn't made the trip just for the sake of seeing the sleeper car!). The senior volunteers on hand understood the historical angle for us and were extremely helpful. While waiting for the "time to be right" we toured the other displayed at the museum which included a lovingly maintained fleet of antique cars and of course the tour de force through the roundhouse at the Spencer shops. Notable sights were one of only six known existing (and ultra rare) Ford Model R autos (valued at something close to or above $250,000), and of course Atlantic Coast Line #501 (sole surviving EMC E3). Additional "ticket punches" were SOU 6133 (FP7A) and several coach cars from the N&Ws famed Powhatan Arrow which although not in perfect shape were nonetheless very interesting to ride. Naturally my thoughts turned to the very different fate that had become for some time of the CSRRs Hattie Evans which had similar heritage but had not been as lucky over the years to be taken care of as well as the coaches had been.

Of particular interest were SOU 1211 built as a "Partition Coach" in 1922, which of course was a nice way of saying that the car was segregated. While the coach seats were no longer present inside the car, crucially, the partition was completely intact. Hopefully if the car is ever fully restored people will be able to walk through the car and see it for themselves. Having spent a fair amount of time discussing rail passenger capacity efficiencies I couldn't help but be struck by the crushing administrative and operational burdens that segregation must have placed on the larger railroads operating over long distances to and from the South. Not only did they have to ensure that they had enough rolling stock to serve all passenger classes but even assuming they didn't take very good care of their 'Colored' passengers they still had to ensure some kind of minimal capacity to serve those passengers as well. The impossibility of suitably (even by the poor standards of that era) accommodating large or variable numbers of these passengers would have made it difficult for them indeed and frankly on some level would have forced many railroads not to serve them at all or only serve them on a minimal basis. Furthermore, assuming that Pullman accommodations couldn't be purchased by those considered 'Colored' the railroads would have also had to miss out on any opportunities to gain market share or otherwise "upsell" those passengers to better more profitable accommodations. I can easily imagine more than one accountant looking at these costs and calling it madness, a view which may have been quietly shared by more than just a few in the Executive office suites as well.

I would make further note here that the Museum deserves special credit for not only taking the time to preserve this car as a special example of the unique history of Southern railroads but they also took great care and time to acknowledge and emphasize the facts of discrimination in employment practices by the Southern Railway at the Spencer Shops which prohibited 'Colored' employees from advancing into any skilled trades and almost always kept them in menial positions as laborers and cleaners. NCTM's approach to the negative legacies of discrimination, segregation and other practices in place at that time was forthright, honest and clear and as with the rest of the museum I thought it was very well done.

I was even more impressed by the restored Army Hospital Car (U.S. Army #89480). The museum vignette indicated that the addition of tie down points to the car made it possible that this car was one of the few to have actually been transported to Korea and used in Hospital train service there. The nearly complete and intact nature of the car, along with its very telling inclusion of six berths separated for "special" patients (for those receiving psychiatric care) was something that to me was a very real testament to the common threads of sacrifice across all conflicts.

I thought the use of a separate set of berths for psychiatric patients was a remarkably merciful step to take as it would have spared them the further trauma of being bunked above or below those who might have experienced physical injuries which at that stage could have been in very rough shape. Also interesting to note that the car had full kitchen facilities and was essentially a small self-contained hospital. Obviously this would be expected but the extent to which these capabilities could be miniaturized and setup for service over the rails was quite remarkable. I never would have guessed that these facilities would be as well provided for as they were, but then again most people never realize the full extent of military capabilities in any era anyways.

And so the moment had arrived, the correct key was obtained and we walked out to Pine Tree State sitting alone on a siding. Not having seen any interior photos on the internet I wasn't really sure what to expect and whether or not the trip to the museum (for which Pine Tree State was definitely a motivating factor) was going to be "worth it" or not.

And so like literally thousands of Mainers before us we alighted onto Pine Tree State and found ourselves....in semi-darkness. And this was where things actually became more and not less interesting. The shades in the hallway going down the side of the car were pulled down and I could see what looked like some kind of blue hues coming from the hall, I figured those must have been some kind of 'service lights'. There were also one or two lights on right by the vestibule. I realized I was standing by the electrical cabinet and after asking permission opened it up to find.... completely intact electrical circuit breakers that I had very few doubts were original factory installation. I looked at the wiring chart and flipped everything which literally brought the car to life (it was plugged in to "shore power").

We then proceeded to the first open double bedroom to find .... darkness. Again. This time it was a little easier as I located some vintage toggle switches (right were they should be!) and flipped on the lights in the room to reveal .... a perfectly intact double bedroom with all amenities working, all light fixtures working and even the little fans close to the ceiling in place (maybe not working...couldn't tell for sure).

The carpet looked as if it had been replaced (which it probably had been). The partitions for use to convert the bedrooms to singles were in place as well and as far as I knew it seemed as if this was probably the case in the other bedrooms. We proceeded down the hallway, past the kitchen used for the buffet service (which apparently was either in your room or in the lounge and yes, then we came to the lounge. Probably original chairs in place and the beautiful effects of art-deco designed indirect lighting.

For all intents and purposes this car is completely and totally intact. That it is not just the last remaining sleeper car to service Maine but of course the last remaining piece of NH rolling stock still interchangeable on national railroads makes Pine Tree State a very special piece of history indeed.

This post wouldn't be complete without acknowledging the efforts of the Massachusetts Bay Rail Road Enthusiasts whose donations in the early aughts (2004/2005?) helped pay for restoration of the car to its present state. My profound thanks to the volunteers at the North Carolina Transportation Museum who took time out of their very long day to give me and my family this special tour.

Great report, gokeefe. What a nice Christmas present. Thanks!

--eastwind

eastwind wrote:Great report, gokeefe. What a nice Christmas present. Thanks!

--eastwind

You're welcome! My present to everyone! (And there's still more to come...)

I should probably remark here that seeing this car was in some ways ever more of an overwhelming experience than I expected it to be. I sat in one of the lounge chairs for a few minutes and just 'took it all in'. It was really quite the experience, perhaps only to be superseded someday by riding in this car during an actual train ride (I'm not even going to begin to quantify how neat I think it would be to ride in this car overnight...).

Even though Portland Union Station is long gone, and was well before I was born, the experience of stepping up in to a car that I knew with total certainty had served that very station day in and day out for years was really something else. Short of actually being able to visit Union Station stepping in to that car has got to be the next closest thing. Admittedly this car would have served Union Station in its latter years but in some ways perhaps that made the experience all the more real as this car would represent the "last known" example of a sleeper running on trains to and from Maine.

Color photos of train stations in the late 1950s often depict grand aging structures that are worn with time and marked in places with soot from the recently ended era of steam. This car belongs to exactly that era and from my point of view it has probably been one of the eras that I've most been interested in not just from a historical perspective but from a policy standpoint as well.

Trying to understand the failure of rail as a mode of passenger transportation in Maine requires a lot of work to try and wrap your mind around the demographic and economic changes underway in Maine at that time. Seeing this car and thinking about why Mainers and those wishing to travel to or from Maine would have decided to travel by car instead is an interesting exercise all in itself. At least in the case of Pine Tree State and likely the State of Maine itself people certainly weren't abandoning the trains for any lack of comfort or service quality. This was an absolutely top notch first class car with all of its attendant accommodations. If the rest of the train even came close to resembling this, which it likely did, quality and comfort weren't the problem for the MEC, B&M or the NH.

In fact, assuming that the MECs own stainless cars, which were of similar vintage, were also of similar quality it would be very easy to believe that Maine Central's passenger service was in fact 'quality' right up to the very end. Perhaps due in part to the fact that these trains came off so early that's something that most people here in these forums don't remark about much.

Overall seeing that car sitting off all by itself in Spencer might as well have been like standing on the end of the platform at Union Station as the last passenger train rolled out of the station. It has a very real connection to the final era of Maine Central passenger service and the 'grand' tradition of travel by train to Maine that perhaps no other preserved railroad passenger car still in existence has today.

I think Maine Central's contribution to the streamlined passenger car pool was coaches and combos. I don't know whether either lasted in service right up until the end or not. I do remember seeing Maine Central coaches on the State of Maine during some of 1960 but they were old coaches and not streamlined although they looked to be in good shape. I rode the State of Maine one night from Portland to New York but that night we had two New Haven 8600 class coaches in the consist and no Maine Central coaches.
The end of passenger service in Northern New England at least at the time it actually happened could be laid to one man, Patrick McGinnis who went out of his way to destroy the service. I can only say that even though much of the service was not doing well at least some of it could have survived somewhat longer if he had not come on the scene. The Maine Central was not doing really well passenger wise but their trains carred a good amount of mail, express and newspapers and I doubt if they were taking that much of a loss on them. Once the Boston and Maine eliminated all through passenger operations with the Maine Central (excpet the summer only Bar Harbor) Spencer Miller (President of the Maine Central) threw in the towell and decided to take all of them off, it took a bit of time but it happened and it was a loss to Maine for sure. McGinnis not only drove the Maine Central but also the Bangor and Aroostook and later the Central Vermont out of the passenger business as well.
Noel Weaver

Noel,

Thanks very much for the reply. That is a version of the story that I haven't heard before which includes detail that is normally left out. The version I've always read simply starts as, "The trains were losing money." without necessarily indicating that the loss of through trains from the B&M had anything to do with it.

Which through trains exactly were lost anyways? The State of Maine didn't get shutdown until October 29, 1960. That's about the same time, almost to the month that the MEC shutdown their passenger services.

gokeefe wrote:Noel,


Which through trains exactly were lost anyways? The State of Maine didn't get shutdown until October 29, 1960. That's about the same time, almost to the month that the MEC shutdown their passenger services.

McGinnis was responsible for:
The Gull had through cars from Boston to St. John, NB, he cut the Boston - Portland segment to Budd Cars and the train lost much of its through business.
The through trains between Boston and Bangor, he forced the passengers to change at Portland with Budd Cars between Boston and Portland.
The through coach and sleeper to the MEC and BAR enroute Boston and Northern Maine were cut as well at least so far as Boston was concerned.
The overnight through train between Boston and Montreal via the CP, in this case the entire train came off on both railroads.
He also tried to cut the through cars on the day train between New York and Montreal but this did not work out very well and the CV finally made the move to provide all of the passenger cars between Montreal and New York although later on the New Haven also contributed cars to this operation.
The funny thing about all of these trains is that in most cases the bus lines did not gain much if any patronage as a result of these cuts, this proved that in this case and at least in the 60's the folks in Northern New England preferred the passenger trains and without them they just drove either to where they wanted to go or to some other passenger station where there were still some passenger trains. A couple of stations that even to this day handle a lot of passengers out of Northern New England are Springfield and Albany.
Noel Weaver

Noel Weaver wrote:I think Maine Central's contribution to the streamlined passenger car pool was coaches and combos. I don't know whether either lasted in service right up until the end or not.

Maine Central owned eight 56-seat coach/10-seat smoking-lounge cars, and two 24-seat diner/18-seat bar-lounge cars, all built by Pullman-Standard and delivered in 1947. (The B&M owned an identical set of cars purchased as half of a joint order with the MeC.) To my knowledge, these ten cars were the only streamlined cars the Maine Central ever owned. The MeC dining cars were sold to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois in 1951 (after only four years in Maine!) and became the property of the Louisville & Nashville in 1959 when the C&EI merged into the L&N. The MeC coaches were sold to the Missouri Pacific in 1960, about the time the Maine Central discontinued all passenger service on Labor Day weekend, 1960. I remember seeing the train-off notice in the Waterville station and thinking, "Now how are people going to get to Boston?" Why, Northeast Airlines, of course, until that too went belly-up.

Noel Weaver wrote:I do remember seeing Maine Central coaches on the State of Maine during some of 1960 but they were old coaches and not streamlined although they looked to be in good shape. I rode the State of Maine one night from Portland to New York but that night we had two New Haven 8600 class coaches in the consist and no Maine Central coaches.

Since by the summer of 1960 the Maine Central was down to only two trains a day between Bangor and Portland (aside from the once-a-week all-Pullman Bar Harbor through train between Washington/New York and Bangor), their need for equipment was small. Nevertheless, since the State of Maine was only a New Haven-Boston & Maine service, there was no requirement that the Maine Central contribute any cars to it. Any MeC cars on that train would have been a courtesy or a response to a temporary shortage of cars from the NH or the B&M. How I wish I could see pictures of Maine Central cars in Grand Central! A rarity indeed.

Noel Weaver wrote: McGinnis not only drove the Maine Central but also the Bangor and Aroostook and later the Central Vermont out of the passenger business as well.

Curiously enough, despite the lack of direct connections to anywhere beyond its own lines, the Bangor & Aroostook continued to run one passenger train a day (numbers 2 and 9) between Northern Maine Junction and Caribou through the summer of 1960. How long it lasted beyond that, I can't say, although the BAR's parallel bus service was still listed in the Official Guide in 1966.

--eastwind

eastwind wrote:

Noel Weaver wrote:I think Maine Central's contribution to the streamlined passenger car pool was coaches and combos. I don't know whether either lasted in service right up until the end or not.

Maine Central owned eight 56-seat coach/10-seat smoking-lounge cars, and two 24-seat diner/18-seat bar-lounge cars, all built by Pullman-Standard and delivered in 1947. (The B&M owned an identical set of cars purchased as half of a joint order with the MeC.) To my knowledge, these ten cars were the only streamlined cars the Maine Central ever owned. The MeC dining cars were sold to the Chicago & Eastern Illinois in 1951 (after only four years in Maine!) and became the property of the Louisville & Nashville in 1959 when the C&EI merged into the L&N. The MeC coaches were sold to the Missouri Pacific in 1960, about the time the Maine Central discontinued all passenger service on Labor Day weekend, 1960. I remember seeing the train-off notice in the Waterville station and thinking, "Now how are people going to get to Boston?" Why, Northeast Airlines, of course, until that too went belly-up.

Noel Weaver wrote:I do remember seeing Maine Central coaches on the State of Maine during some of 1960 but they were old coaches and not streamlined although they looked to be in good shape. I rode the State of Maine one night from Portland to New York but that night we had two New Haven 8600 class coaches in the consist and no Maine Central coaches.

Since by the summer of 1960 the Maine Central was down to only two trains a day between Bangor and Portland (aside from the once-a-week all-Pullman Bar Harbor through train between Washington/New York and Bangor), their need for equipment was small. Nevertheless, since the State of Maine was only a New Haven-Boston & Maine service, there was no requirement that the Maine Central contribute any cars to it. Any MeC cars on that train would have been a courtesy or a response to a temporary shortage of cars from the NH or the B&M. How I wish I could see pictures of Maine Central cars in Grand Central! A rarity indeed.

Noel Weaver wrote: McGinnis not only drove the Maine Central but also the Bangor and Aroostook and later the Central Vermont out of the passenger business as well.

Curiously enough, despite the lack of direct connections to anywhere beyond its own lines, the Bangor & Aroostook continued to run one passenger train a day (numbers 2 and 9) between Northern Maine Junction and Caribou through the summer of 1960. How long it lasted beyond that, I can't say, although the BAR's parallel bus service was still listed in the Official Guide in 1966.

--eastwind

I believe one rount trip on the Bangor and Aroostook continued until September, 1961 but it ran between Northern Maine Junction and Caribou or Presque Isle, I don't remember which, I will have to dig to get the answer to this one but I think the date is OK.
Noel Weaver