MEC spur in Brewer

[trainsinmaine]

This afternoon I was traveling by car from Bangor into Brewer, via State Street. As I crossed the MEC Bucksport Branch crossing at the bottom of the hill just before the intersection with North Main Street, I made note of something I had seen before and am curious about: a RR spur coming out from a thicket on the left just where the hill begins. It has been cut off (long ago, I would surmise) just before the point where it would have bisected the street.

I'm curious about it because the Bucksport Branch crosses State Street at a very sharp angle, hence the spur would have veered off in a southeasterly direction from ANOTHER spur that must have left the Branch just before it entered the river bridge --- a spur of a spur, as it were. As one looks upriver from the Bangor side, it appears that the main spur may have hugged the east side of the river for some distance at one time --- about a third of a mile. Does anyone know what industry it served?

[Highball]

There was a spur off the Bucksport Branch that seved a paper mill located by the Penobscot River in Brewer. The mill closed a few years ago, I believe.

[trainsinmaine]

That was a different spur, about two miles to the south of the one I'm referring to. I remember it; it indeed served the old Brewer paper mill (now part of Cianbro's construction empire). The track was torn up at the time of the mill renovation.

[JB283]

Did the Calais branch start there?

[trainsinmaine]

It's not a spur; it just looks like one.

There once was, as noted, a spur near the river bridge on the Bucksport Branch that went into a mill yard on the river, but it was a bit farther down the hill (quite near the railroad crossing). It's long gone, but you can see the roadbed as you look across the river from Bangor. What you're referring to --- that short section of railbed that juts out from the side of the hill --- is part of a little history park that commemorates Bangor and Brewer's role in Underground Railroad (which, of course, had nothing to do with railroads, but I digress). The railbed serves as a symbolic reminder of said history. I don't know whose idea it was, but I have to say it was, well, "creative."

[RGlueck]

The Bucksport Branch is going to be maintained indefinitely. I have that on the highest of authority.
The over-grown connection to the Calais Branch is one of several crossings on MDOT's list to renew in the coming years. Again, there are no plans to renew the whole Calais branch to Washington Jct., but there are no plans to pull it up and "land-lock" Downeast Scenic Railroad or New England Steam Corporation.

There was, at one time, a feeder line into what was a scrap metal processing plant in Brewer, immediately over the Wilson Street crossing. Both are now gone. There was a siding into Eastern Fine Paper, in Brewer. The siding is gone and EFP is now a training and fab plant for Cianbro.