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diff --git a/75376-0.txt b/75376-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c1b555a --- /dev/null +++ b/75376-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,2122 @@ + +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75376 *** + + +Transcriber’s Note: + + ● Italics in the original are noted by _underscores_. + ● Small capitals in the original are converted to ALL CAPS. + ● Ditto marks (“) in tables or lists with train details have been + replaced with the text they represent. + ● Obvious typos have been corrected. + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + EDAVILLE + RAILROAD + + + by Linwood W. Moody + + + + + EDAVILLE RAILROAD + + The Cranberry Belt + + by + + Linwood W. Moody + + + (_The photographs illustrating this book were taken by Cyrus + Hosmer 3D, 34 Chester Road, Belmont 78, Massachusetts; + Linwood W. Moody, Union, Maine; and Ellis D. Atwood, South + Carver, Massachusetts, and are credited accordingly._) + + + Published by + + Ellis D. Atwood + + South Carver, Massachusetts + + 1947 + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + +[Illustration: MAP OF THE EDAVILLE R.R. SO. CARVER, MASS.] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + FOREWORD + + +_Edaville Railroad_ isn’t a complete story of Ellis D. Atwood’s midget +cranberry line. It isn’t an all-time history of the odd and colorful +little roads that preceded it and of which the _Cranberry Belt_ is the +last and final survivor. + +A while ago Mr. Atwood suggested writing-up his Lilliputian carrier for +the benefit of his host of visitors who aren’t as familiar as we are +with such abbreviated railroad sizes. Something concise yet generally +explanatory, answering most of the questions that might pop into your +mind. Something to give you a fairly good idea of what the Edaville +Railroad is and what its forebears have been. Something complete enough +to cover the subject in a cursory way and still be printed to sell for +the price of a ticket at Edaville, if he was selling tickets here. + +No book has ever been written telling completely, in words or pictures, +the all-time story of these diminutive lines. Maybe sometime one will +be, and your reception to this booklet could be a deciding factor. + +However, _Edaville Railroad_ will be a helpful guide-book for your visit +here and your ride on the Tom Thumb train. Or, if you aren’t already +down here, it will show you what you’re missing! + + LINWOOD W. MOODY + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + INTRODUCTION + + +I don’t like this--prefatory pages in books. Why can’t we speak our +piece in the main text without expecting a feller to wade through +Forewords, Prefaces, and Prologues? We can, if our gray-matter is agile +enough. + +But--my _Introduction_! + +The world’s railroads aren’t all the same, you know. Width of track, or +_gauge_, varies. Standard gauge, as ’most everyone knows, is four-feet, +eight-and-one-half inches between the rails and there are plenty of +hypotheses about how it got that way. + +A few roads are wider than standard--five-feet, and five-and-a-half. +Years ago you could even go all the way from New York to Chicago on +tracks six feet wide. England once made merry on some _seven_ foot +gauge. + +Narrower gauge was much more common. Three feet and three-and-a-half +once claimed thousands of miles. Why! In Grandpa’s day there were no +less than thirty-seven different gauges of track in our fair land, and +Lord only knows how many the foreign countries had, with their +millimeters and other measuring sticks. Today, in North America, the +four-feet, eight-and-a-half-inchers have pretty well switched the +non-standard lines off the railroad map. + +Of our own 227,000 miles of line 99-1/2 per cent is standard gauge, a +scant 932 being something else--724 of it the Colorado three-footers. On +only 380 miles is there a semblance of passenger service! Of Canada’s +42,000 miles, 90 is narrow gauge--the three-foot White Pass & Yukon +Route. Mexico, however, hangs onto her slim gauge a little better and +2,400 of her total 12,600 miles of road is three-feet wide. The 809 mile +Newfoundland Railway, three-and-a-half feet narrow, is likewise +prosperously content with its non-conformity. + +Of the whole world’s railway mileage, 788,000--but let’s not get too +involved here. Anyway, foreign lands still consider economical +transportation more important than the distance between the rails, and +many miles of narrow tracks still thread hill and dale beyond the seas. + +The very narrowest of them all, excepting some industrial tramway or +miniature freak, was the vaunted two-footer. Sixty-centimeter, they call +’em over there, which is just another way of saying twenty-three and +five-eighths inches. England had a few, and France has her famous +“decaville” railways. The far East, Africa, and Australia still run +generous two-foot mileage, and Latin America is pretty fond of the +little cusses. + +Up here in our country, half a century ago, they blossomed like roses at +sunrise, bloomed lustily through the morning, but wilted ere there’d +been time for the winds of Fate to blow their pollen around in good +shape. + +The top-puff midgets were the stout little virtuosi up in Maine. Their +bantam chests jingled merrily with medals they’d won. A few scattered +hybrids did some anemic bush-pushing elsewhere--one in Pennsylvania, one +in New Mexico, and a third in Colorado’s icy mountains. They weren’t +_real_ railroads, though. Either industrial outfits or kind of +street-carrish affairs. That’s why I skipped ’em here. Had to draw the +line somewhere. + +The ten two-footers in Maine boasted about 212 miles of line. They were +built and run like the big railroads. Had freight, and passenger trains. +Were governed by the same laws and regulations. And were immensely vital +to the loves and lives of the neighborhood. Their smoky smells were just +as alluring and they could holler just as loud. I always thought they +were a bit more democratic and hail-fellow-well-met than the more +decorous grownups. Colorful, and kind of dramatic, too! + +They passed, not because folks wanted all railroads alike. Not because +they didn’t measure up. Worse than that. They limped into the sunset +because people didn’t use them any more. Their _gauge_ made no +difference. Plenty of standard gauges puffed into the limbo too. Neither +could run without money. The two-footers stood it longer than their more +expensive relatives of wider size. No. Their narrow gauge wasn’t the +reason although the standardization tycoons beefed about non-conformity +and the cost of transferring freight. + +The decade of the 1930’s saw them go. For a while longer the Bridgton +line and the little Monson were tolerated by some and cherished by a +few, but when clouds of Peace darkened the war-red sky they were +gone--the last two-footer had whistled off leaving only memory-trains to +scoot through the mid-regions of the past. + +That’s why the Edaville Railroad stands out. Why it’s a splendid +anti-climax to an era of colorful midget railroading. Not so much +because it’s the last survivor, as I persist in calling it, as a +resurrection--an ideal risen from the ashes of Yesterday. + +Here it is: not a synthetical reproduction but those very same engines +and cars that made railroad history for three generations, alive and +puffing again on Ellis Atwood’s eighteen-hundred acres. A seed from +history that now blooms with the cranberries, sprouting in that same +sand that perennializes faded shrubs from the Holy Commonwealth, +Plymouth Colony, America in the making. + +That’s why I had to have an _Introduction_. All right? + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + EDAVILLE RAILROAD + + THE CRANBERRY BELT + + +Well, well, well; just look at this-- + +The Edaville Railroad. Eighteen hundred acres long and only two feet +wide! + +Let’s look it over. There’s nothing like it anywhere. As if Plymouth +County and the town of Carver weren’t famous enough already, not to +mention Ellis Atwood’s model cranberry plantation, this little narrow +gauge railroad now vies with cranberry crops and _Mayflower_ packets in +spectacular “firsts”. + +Plymouth, you know, is famous far and wide for being the stern and +rockbound coast where the Pilgrims debarked three hundred and +twenty-seven years ago. That’s Fourth Grade stuff. Also pretty well +known, this historical region is first in world cranberry growing. Yes. +Grows more little red berries on its pleasant, frugiferous acres than +the rest of the world combined. To top this off Carver boasts first +place among the cranberry towns, its 2,800 acres of bog harvesting +100,000 barrels a year--fifteen per cent of the whole world’s crop! No +argument about our list of “firsts” so far, is there? + +While we’re firsting: ages ago, when Carver was the first iron producing +corner of the New World, the very first iron teakettle made in America +is said to have been cast here--from Carver iron, Carver smelter, and +moulded in Carver sand. + +But, back to that corner of the town that’s Ellis Atwood’s own, private +first--eighteen hundred acre Edaville. + +Edaville, 210 acres of actual bog, is the biggest privately owned +cranberry business in the world. Nearly 10,000 barrels of the sour +little things grow here every year. + +All this, with ultra-attractive buildings and equipment, is enough to +set Mr. Atwood and his Thanksgiving sauce up as high as a block-signal. +But wait: his Edaville Railroad! + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + One of the first Edaville freight trains, with railroad fan John Holt + at the throttle of Monson engine No. 4. +] + +The Edaville Railroad is maybe the most spectacular of all these +interesting “firsts”. It’s even more so because it’s the last--but we’ll +come to this _last_ part later. Let’s consider the _first_, first. + +The first of all these famous Massachusetts cranberry lands to have a +real, he-man, tobacco-chewing railroad, complete to the last fishplate, +resplendent to the last parlor-car, and unbelievably efficient with its +excellent big-railed track, stout little engines, and wonderland cars. +Its importance as a plantation utility and, finally, the holiday fun it +gives you thousands of visitors who’re making it a Sunday spa and a +railroad fans’ Mecca. + +That’s the Edaville Railroad, the Cranberry Belt: first of its kind, you +see. + +It’s the last one, too. + +A cloud of nostalgia dims the brilliance of Edaville lights when we +think of this side of the story. _Last of the two-foot gauges._ Final +survivor of the colorful midgets that once puffed around our +heterogeneous land. + +Want to look it over? I thought so; Mr. Atwood is busy right now, and +why wouldn’t he be with the biggest one-man cranberry plantation on +earth, plus a little million civic and philanthropic affairs to see to? +I’ll show you around. Come on! + +Here we are--the screenhouse. Cranberry bogs have screenhouses the same +as railroads have trains. These screenhouses, where berries are cleaned +and graded and prepared for market, may be anything from a rough shed to +this super structure here. This is the first one of its kind, too: a +big, yet compact, brick show-place housing not only the berry equipment +and the car shops, the company offices including Mr. Atwood’s own +private sanctum (most admired spot in Edaville!), but brimming with +storage space as well. + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + Mr. Atwood’s model screenhouse, the finest in the world, built in 1940 + at a cost of--well, that doesn’t matter. +] + +The railroad really begins here. Maybe that’s because the first rails +were laid into it for car repairing. There, clustering around like +chicks with Mama Hen, is the railroad station and most of the yards. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + No dieselization on the Edaville. Here passenger extra No. 7 sails + past work train on sandpit spur. +] + +What a sight! Cranberry architecture and railroad artistry all mixed +together under the green pine trees. See the vivid contrast--yellow sand +and the bright blue sky. The red freight cars, and green passenger +coaches sporting their goldleaf name of _Edaville_ along the sides. + +Eh? Those other names? Oh; Mr. Atwood restored these cars to their +original appearance and part of his pristine program was to letter +several of them as they were in the beginning. The parlor-car is _Sandy +River & Rangeley Lakes_, one ancient coach is _Bridgton & Saco River_, +and that other one once rolled over the old _Wiscasset & Quebec_ rails. +The idea makes a hit, too. + +See--there are some trains scurrying about their cranberry work, while +that string of shiny passenger cars at the station, headed by the +impatient little homuncular engine, is waiting to take you for a ride. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + No. 7 hauls Mr. Atwood’s passenger train, loaded with a hundred of his + guests. +] + +We’ll walk over. (No; that dog won’t bite.) Some station, isn’t it? Just +built this Spring. Thousands of people visit Edaville every week; I +guess lots of them hurry right by Plymouth Rock to come over here. +That’s why Mr. Atwood decided he needed a passenger station. + +Yes, it’s quite a place; besides the usual station fixtures it has a +real Fred Harveyish kind of restaurant, a museum, waiting-room, and +social hall besides. That’s where they get together for club meetings, +speeches when some speechster is here, yarn-swapping, and to look at all +the interesting railroad relics and pictures on display there. There’ll +be some barracks upstairs someday, where visitors may bed down for a +night or two. + +End of the line? No, not exactly. The tracks go right by the station. +That’s because it’s on a little loop encircling Mr. Atwood’s model +Edaville village--screenhouse, railroad, and all those cozy cottages +where his employees live--and joins the main line again half a mile +away. We’ll see the switch when we go out. Trains can go out of this +station three different ways. You’ll see. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Mr. and Mrs. Atwood smile beside of their de luxe coach “Elthea”, + named in her honor. +] + +No. 7’s hauling the excursion train today. Want to see her? A trim +little pot, don’t you think? Baldwin built her thirty-four years ago and +she was the biggest two-foot gauge engine ever built then. Thirty-five +tons wrapped up there. Doesn’t look it, does she? Her outside frames +enclose four thirty-five inch drivers that can really roll. Hundred and +eighty pounds of steam, twelve-by-sixteen inch cylinders. You won’t see +it today but she can bat ’em off at a sixty mile clip! + +Like most of this equipment No. 7 came from the Bridgton & Saco River, +up in Maine. + +This tricky little car hooked to her tail was the B. & S. R.’s Railway +Post Office, Express, and Baggage car. Yes, they used to have a regular +mail contract, postal clerks and all. That was before the other war. + +This coach, too, was a Bridgton car, the old _Pondicherry_. Laconia Car +Works built her and a mate, the _Mount Pleasant_, when the road was new, +sixty-four years ago. Of course, Mr. Atwood has refinished and renovated +them all. When we go out on the train please notice those coaches down +in the yard: the one with double windows and stained glass was a fine +idea of two-foot de luxe coach accommodations. She’s the _Elthea_, named +for Elthea Atwood, Mr. Atwood’s wife. A proper tribute, too, because she +works right with him in everything--cranberry business, railroad, and +all. + +Now: this smooth little wagon on the rear here, _that’s_ the parlor car. + +Ever hear of the old Sandy River parlor car? You must have! It’s been in +print ever since Jackson & Sharpe built it, ’way back when. In 1901, to +be exact. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Old Coach “Mount Pleasant”, identical to the “Pondicherry”, both built + in 1882 by Laconia Car Co. +] + +Want to walk through it? We’ve got time. Here’s the smoking end: two +leather seats and a couple of chairs. And in here is the lavatory in one +corner and the car heater in the other--hot water. This spacious cubical +to your left is the toilet; no shoe-horn needed there, eh? Plenty of +room for the old bustles and hoop skirts to swish around. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Interior of parlor car “Rangeley”. +] + +Now we’re in the parlor car proper: just see those swivel chairs with +their lush, green upholstery; the deep, filigreed carpet covering the +floor. Fit for the millionaires who used to ride in her, eh? + +Each seat has a number, up over the window. Time was, years ago, when +you coughed up an extra simoleon to ride in this buggy. A colored +porter, who’d left New York the night before, stepped from his big +Pullman into this baby-carriage to brush off your dandruff on the +forty-seven mile run through Franklin County’s hills to Rangeley--a +swanky resort in those days. + +_Rangeley_ was the car’s name, too: _Rangeley No. 9_. + +When the Sandy River was abandoned in 1935 the little _Rangeley_, none +the worse for her generation of scooting through sunny valleys and +boreal storms, was bought by a doctor in Strong, Maine for two hundred +dollars. His big house was right beside the old main line and they left +the parlor car in his own dooryard, sitting on four sticks of +sixty-pound rail she’d rolled over so many times. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + With all the decorum of her wide gauge sisters the little “Rangeley” + trails the passenger train along the twisting dikes. +] + +He died. Then a connoisseur of antiquity who just couldn’t see her sold +for a hen-house or a camp, bought her. Later on Mr. Atwood got her from +him. Came down here on a big trailer one twenty-below-zero morning. +Imagine a parlor car breezing along the highway! + +Well, looks like we’re ready to go. Let’s stay here on the rear +platform. Good place to view the sights. + +Starts smoothly? Sure: could be the _Federal_ leaving Grand Central. +These little trains ride all right. When track’s kept up you can’t tell +’em from standard gauge. + +The enginehouse will be over there. Six stalls: four for the engines and +two for some of the motor cars. Motor cars? Oh yes, there are motor +cars. You’ll see some before we get back. + +Look up there at the screenhouse: those big doors are the car shop +tracks. Holds six or eight cars in there. These are the main yards we’re +going through now; storage, mostly. See that track on the higher level +over there? Goes to the screenhouse door where berries are unloaded in +harvesting time. Screen and grade ’em in there. Stiff climb up that +bank, too. Makes the little engines grunt. + +This is quite a yard. Confusing, too, until you get it fixed in your +mind. It’s like this: the track we’re on now is the original main line +out of Edaville--down through these yards and out onto the bogs. Now, +since the railroad was completed, it’s kind of an alternative cutoff, +I’d say. + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + In the shade of Mr. Atwood’s beautiful pine grove the baby cars enjoy + a Cape Cod siesta. +] + +When Mr. Atwood surveyed the station loop (oh, he does all his own +surveying!) he branched it off this line about half a mile down from +here. That’s the switch I told you we’d see when we went out. A train +coming in off the bogs can go around the loop into the station, then +keep on going just as we’re going now, over this track, and back onto +the bogs again. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + A midget freight train puffs up the heavy grade back of Edaville + village. +] + +Running to the upper end of the Atwood property the line swings east; to +our right, it’ll be. Circles down the shore of big Number Two reservoir +and, instead of re-entering the main stem again it comes into these +yards from a totally different direction--on that track to your left, +across the canal. A train coming in that way would head into the station +just the opposite to our direction. But she could proceed around the +little loop and come into the switch below us here and head onto the +bogs the same way we’re going. + +Another way: if we’d left the station just now and thrown a switch at +the other end of this yard, we’d have branched across the canal onto +that track over there, and proceeded around the line just the other way +from our present direction. Confusing, yes; but you’ll get it +straightened out when we’ve been around. Western slants or eastern +perspectives, it’s still the last two-foot gauge we’re riding on! + +We’re in the grove now. Pretty, isn’t it? Before the big wind of three +or four years ago this was a forest of beautiful pines. That gale played +havoc here as well as down on the coast; blew down over half of Mr. +Atwood’s pet pine trees. He felt pretty sorry at the time but now agrees +that maybe railroad yards are more pleasing than the whispering conifers +were! + +How do you like the sound of No. 7’s whistle? Euphonious as any +wide-gauge tooter, eh? He’s blowing for Barboza’s Crossing. We’re +leaving the yards. See that cottage there--Mr. Barboza used to have a +big, ugly rooster; that hellion would attack trains and humans alike. My +shins used to be all gory where he’d clumb me and I strongly suspect +that under his bristling feathers there were black-and-blue spots, too! +No; the train didn’t mash him. We hoped it would, but he was too smart. +Barboza had to chop his head off three times before the tartar went down +for the count. + +There: here’s your first cranberry bog, Number Six. Pretty, too; +especially when it’s in bloom. Looks like some strange kind of landscape +gardening. This embankment under us is all “turf work”. Ever hear of +“turfing”? Neither had I, until I came down here. It’s all right, too: +instead of expensive retaining walls or rip-rap they just cut a lot of +square sods and lay them in a just-so way; and there’s a strong, +dependable vertical wall. Looks neat, I think. + +Right ahead now is the switch where the loop swings off to the station. +Right here--see! Pretty piece of track, isn’t it? Winding up through +those woods with sunlight and shadows playing across the rails. Over +here--see all those timbers? They’re old ties the New Haven took out of +their Cape lines. All creosoted and mostly hard wood. The New Haven and +the Boston & Maine have been pretty good about helping the Edaville, and +Mr. Atwood bought those ties for less money than the Maine cedar’s cost. +He saws ’em in two and gets a couple of four foot, three inch ties from +each one. Makes wonderful track for these mites to run on. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + A track crew, under the supervision of Foreman Hatch (third from + left), keeps the section clean. +] + +We’re skirting the little Number One reservoir now. Cranberry bogs must +have plenty of water. Mr. Atwood has a system of ditches and canals, +controlled by floodgate-thingamajigs, that supply quick water to any or +all his bogs. This flooding may be for pest control or, in the late +fall, to cover berries as a frost protection. Remember how we often hear +radio reports in late September or October, telling what temperatures +can be expected on the cranberry bogs tonight? Run some water in ’em and +old Jack Frost is frustrated! More gates drain it off quickly when the +danger’s past. + +This country is flat. All the water must be pumped into these reservoirs +from some pond or river. His pumping-station is up beyond the Ball Park; +two or three big electric pumps. I forget how many million gallons these +reservoirs hold. Enough to get you all wet, anyway. + +Pretty along here; brown sand and blue water and green woods. We think +the narrow gauge railroad adds a lot to the charm, too. We’re blowing +for Plantation Center now. Will stop there probably. Want to get off a +minute? + +The Atwoods are strong for landscaping; keep all their grounds so neat +and attractive. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Big Lorain-40 shovel ready to load sand. +] + +There: this is the western side of the big, eighteen hundred acre loop; +track runs a couple of miles along the west bounds of Mr. Atwood’s +property and past several of the sand-piles and bogs. Bogs must be +sprinkled with an inch of sand every winter to keep their bed in proper +trim and to combat weeds and bugs. Sand also radiates heat to prevent +the vines from freezing in our cold New England winters. While vines may +freeze into the ice without harming ’em they mustn’t be chilled by the +cold wind, if you can figure that one out. Mr. Atwood spreads nearly ten +thousand yards of sand each year. He’s got a lot of grit, wouldn’t you +say? + +This big bog--that’s Fourteen Acre; a record breaker. Shells out nearly +eighty barrels to the acre! + +Where did that pile of sand come from? A mile up the line is his +sand-pit. A power shovel loads it onto flatcars and the train hauls it +to these different sand piles; there’s seven or eight thousand yards in +that pile there. When sanding time comes--but you aren’t interested in +all this; you want to see this pocket-edition railroad. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Berry-pickers swarm over 14-Acre Bog, scooping its 80 barrels per + acre. +] + +Look ’way across the big reservoir there: that’s the railroad coming +down the east side. Remember I showed you where it entered the yards +just below the station? The smudge of smoke is a work train. We’ll meet +’em either at the Ball Park or the sand pit. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Loading a train at 14-Acre Bog. Here’s a season when freight trains + come before the passenger specials. +] + +Ball Park? Yes; or more correctly, the _Atwood Athletic Field_. He built +a baseball ground, picnic spot, and a few buildings there. Plenty active +all summer, too. We’ll be up there shortly now. + +Incidentally, it’s when we leave the Ball Park that the track swings +east and south again to go down the opposite side of this reservoir, +where the work train is now. It passes Sunset Vista, winds along the +lower end of the reservoir, and finally enters Edaville yard where I +pointed it out to you. + +I guess we’re off again. Can you make it? + +Isn’t Fourteen Acre a neat looking bog? Not all growers keep their bogs +as neat and trim as Mr. Atwood does. Sure, it costs. There’s something +satisfying in owning the finest cranberry plantation in the world. When +the railroad’s completed and there’s some time to spare he intends to +erect signs around the bogs and at different points of interest, +explaining about cranberry culture, history, production, and how bogs +are built and cared for. Like a self-conducted tour your ride’ll be +then. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + A passenger train smokes across the dike and along the shores of the + big 300-acre reservoir. 60-pound rail from a White Mountain logging + road, supported by ex-New Haven ties, makes a wonderful track. +] + +We’re crossing a corner of undeveloped swamp now: just plain mud and +bushes. Potential bog land, though. Clear that jungle off, dig out some +of the mud and dump in clean sand, set out the cranberry vines--as you’d +plant strawberries or rosebushes--and presto! A new bog. + +New bogs cost close to three thousand dollars an acre. You must wait +four years before the berries come, too. In the end, though, it pays +off: a well built, properly kept bog, like these around here, should be +good for pretty nearly five hundred dollars an acre every year. Yes, +there’s gold in them swamps, but you and me needn’t conjure up dreams of +owning any. It’s a complicated and expensive proposition. Takes years to +learn. More men have gone broke in the swamps than ever got rich out of +’em. + +What do you say: want to walk up through the train and see who’s riding? + +Yes, this parlor car sure is cute. Mr. Atwood’s pet, too. (Look out! +don’t fall over that woman’s feet; she’s spread out there like a +pumpkin-vine.) He had painters and repairmen working half the winter +restoring this car to her school girl complexion. Most of her’s solid +mahogany. She would cost a queen’s dowry to build now: all those inlaid +woods, the filigree designs on her ceiling, the brass lamps, expensive +upholstery, plate glass windows--the splendor of the legendary Nineties. +Can’t buy those things for a song now. Notice how contagious it is--that +traditional humor of those old days. Seems to have infected our carload +of passengers today--even the old girl with her feet clear across the +aisle! + +Careful now: watch your step when we cross from the _Rangeley_ over to +this coach ahead, the _Pondicherry_. These little puppies can nip off +your leg as quickly as the wide gaugers can. + +Quite a car, the _Pondicherry_, isn’t she? That was the name she had +when she was new in 1883, up on the Bridgton & Saco River. Pondicherry +was the original name of the town up there; changed it to Bridgton +later. I don’t know what it means but somehow I seem to think of it +along with County Down, Galway, or Connemara. Could be Swedish or an +Indian name, though. + +Thirty people can sit in these little one-butt seats. Notice the carved +wood and old fashioned windows. Mr. Atwood’s renovating job was about +perfect, wasn’t it? She was some little hack in 1883; still is, too. +Look into that nut-shell toilet--that’s where you need the shoe-horn! + +These cars don’t sway much, do they? Steady and serene as a Shore Line +job. Edaville track is just as good, too, comparatively speaking. This +big rail--mostly fifty-six pounds to the yard--is heavier in proportion +than the New Haven’s big hundred and thirty pound steel. + +How fast are we going? Oh, about twenty-five, I guess. Sometimes when +he’s feeling extra kipper the engineer inches her out a bit and No. 7’s +two-bit drivers will really roll. Mr. Atwood doesn’t approve of that, +with a train load of his guests aboard. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Little Monson No. 3, en route from the junkyard to Mr. Atwood’s + railway empire, will soon be repaired and scooting around the bogs. +] + +Well, let’s go up into the baggage car now; watch your step again! + +Cute little rig, isn’t she? See the mail-racks; and the slots in the +doors where you could mail a letter once upon a time. Some of these +philatelist fellers think it would be a super idea for Mr. Atwood to +arrange with the Postal Department for a one-day Railway Post Office on +the Edaville; mail clerks cancelling letters _Edaville & Cranberry Bogs +R.P.O._ or something like that. Gosh! We’d pay off the national debt +with stamps that day. You know how wild stamp collectors get about such +things? + +Up here from the head platform, or blind end, as it used to be called, +you can get a closeup of No. 7 batting off the rail-joints. See how +she--Oh! here we are at the sand pit. He’s stopping. Let’s drop off and +see where all that sand comes from. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Here’s how the flatcars were trucked down from Maine; loaded + three-deep on a C. E. Hall & Sons diesel trailer. +] + +Wonder why everyone else is jumping off? I see: that work train’s got +in; they’re loading sand to grade the Sunset Vista picnic ground, a flag +stop down the east side. Their engine, little No. 3, came from another +of those Maine roads, the Monson. They had two just alike, No. 3 and No. +4. Mr. Atwood bought them from a concern in Rochester, New York, where +they’d been taken when the Monson road was scrapped in 1945. Yes, she’s +lots smaller than No. 7. Weighs only eighteen tons. She has inside +frames, like wide gauge engines do. No. 7 and No. 8’s frames are +_outside_ the wheels, you know. + +The Monson engines were built by the Vulcan Iron Works down in Wilkes +Barre, one in 1912 and the other in 1918. Their cylinders are much +smaller, too; only ten by fourteen inches. Carry a hundred and sixty +pounds of steam. The inside frames, which make a narrower support for +their balance, makes ’em ride different from the big engines. Slop +around more. They’ll scare you, too, until you get used to them. +Actually these inside framers are as safe as the others; it’s just that +their equilibrium is kind of emotional. Nearly all the early two-foot +locomotives had inside frames and they’re the ones that hung up most of +the slim gauge speed records. + +See: the big Lorain shovel over there is loading sand onto the flatcars; +ten cubic yards to a car, about fifteen tons. There’s usually a work +train out, doing routine plantation work along with construction and +maintenance duties. That’s what she’s doing: building the station +grounds at Sunset Vista. + +Wish you could have seen those flatcars when they first landed here. +Ready to fall apart. Sills rotten, flooring gone, and not a brake +working. Mr. Atwood hired Roland Badger, a millwright up to Walter +Baker’s; Badger is quite a railroad fan himself, has built lots of +little scale models for 0-gauge outfits. He was planning on buying a +pasture somewhere and making himself some quarter-scale iron colts to +run in it. However, the Edaville fits into his dreams pretty well. He’s +repaired or rebuilt about every car here: new sills and floors, and got +the brakes to working. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + A work train at Sunset Vista. The tricky caboose, built by the Maine + Central many years ago, adds a realistic touch to Mr. Atwood’s + pint-sized railroad. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Passenger train in the deep cut at the Ball Field. The elegant coach + “Pondicherry” brings up in the rear. +] + +They’re going out ahead of us! See how easily little No. 3 snakes her +train out of the pit. That tricky little caboose they’re hauling came +from the Sandy River, like the parlor car. When the Maine Central owned +the Sandy River, thirty years ago, they built a number of those cabooses +in their Waterville shops. About as perfect a molecular reproduction of +a wide gauge buggy as anything could be, eh? I like that cupola. It’s +quite a treat to ride up there surveying Mr. Atwood’s eighteen hundred +acres from such a vantage point. We’ll see the work train again at +Sunset Vista. Let’s go on to the Ball Park now. + +Are you especially interested in railroads? This may not mean much to +you, but if a standard gauge car was built to these same proportions it +would be nearly twenty feet wide and twenty-two feet high! Actually +they’re only ten feet wide and around twelve or thirteen feet high. +Shows you how large, in proportion, these two-footers are. An overhang +on either side that’s greater than the gauge of track! Still, they don’t +feel like you’re riding a tight rope, do they? Personally, I think what +this country needs is more two-foot gauges! + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + As fine a consist as any “Empire Builder” or “Minute Man”, if you only + have eyes to see it! +] + +The Ball Park! We’re two and a half miles from the screenhouse now. +Pretty well to the farther end of Mr. Atwood’s cranberry empire. + +They’re having a ball game up here today; South Carver Sunday School +playing the West Wareham Firemen--seems to be an appropriate analogy +there, don’t you think? Sunday Schools usually do oppose people who’re +heading for the Fire! Two hundred people watching that game; came up on +a special train right after dinner. Those people ’way over at the edge +of the woods, they’re Plymouth Kiwanians having their annual clambake. +They’re great for clam bakes down here; say it makes ’em tough. + +Oh: you wanted to see one of the motor cars. Here’re two of them. This +Model T touring car I like best; Sandy River built her in their Phillips +shop. Master Mechanic Lee Stinchfield designed them all. He ought to be +with Electro-Motive; he’d design diesel locomotives better’n they have +now! They’re the neatest little rail cars I’ve ever seen. Mr. Atwood has +two of these T Models; this touring, and a canopy body truck. They have +a wholly different rear-end arrangement: kind of a “take-off” idea; put +a little lever in forward gear and they’ll scoot away in high. Put it in +back position and you fly backwards in high! This touring car was +Superintendent Vose’s private car; he thought nothing of dropping down +from Redington in twenty minutes; sixteen crooked, hilly miles. In +winter he’s often pushed snow ahead of her radiator. They saved the +Sandy River lots of money when otherwise a steam train would have gone +out with fire-fighters or a repair crew. They save Mr. Atwood a lot. +Quicker and cheaper than a pickup for cranberry men to run around in. + +This other one here, the G4, is quite a wagon: something like the big +gas-electrics on wide gauge roads. She seats fifteen people and used to +haul a four-wheel trailer for mail and express. In summertime the Sandy +River ran two of these rail-buses in place of steam passenger trains. +Mr. Atwood occasionally uses this one to carry some visitors over the +road but it’s mostly a sort of de luxe work car for his own crews. + +Well, there goes No. 7’s bell: must be we’re leaving again. Want to ride +the engine down to Sunset Vista? Mr. Atwood won’t like this if he sees +us as it’s strictly against the rules; insurance company, or something. +All settled? Keep off that steam pipe or you’ll be settled in Doc Nye’s +office down to Wareham. + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + Cold nor snow can stop the midget Edaville trains from scooting like a + field-mouse among the bogs. +] + +Here we go. You can see lots of bog from here. Nearly half the whole +plantation’s in sight. There’s the big reservoir, Number Two, three +hundred acres. Holds millions of gallons. Water is all pumped in from +the river over back of the Ball Park. Fish come in through the pump, +too, believe it or not! + +These are new bogs he’s building; started ’em last year. Aren’t the +pitch-pines pretty along the shore there? This ride down the east side +is better scenery than we got coming up. Nights this whole shoreline is +twinkling with little bug-lights where people are fishing for bass; come +from miles around. + +Sunset Vista’s about a mile down here. They called it Ridge Hill before +the railroad came. Mr. and Mrs. Atwood used to come out here and sit in +their Packard to watch the sunset. They enjoyed it. Said it was so +restful and quiet. Must have been kind of a sacrifice, too, when they +gave it up so others could enjoy it. Certainly is nothing restful nor +quiet around here now, since everyone and their inlaws took it over for +sunset picnics. Trains drop ’em off late in the afternoon and pick them +up again along in the evening. There’s even talk of band concerts. It’s +here that the Atwoods will probably have their big Christmas pageant +this year--but maybe I’m letting the tabby out of the bag. Well, we’re +almost there. He’ll stop, because that work train is out ahead of us. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The Edaville has everything the B. & A. has got: speeding passenger + trains, grade crossings, and camera-minded girls who take pictures + of it! +] + +How did No. 7 ride? Like it? Ever on a midget engine before? + +You said awhile ago that you wanted to take some pictures. Movie camera? +Good! Here’s what we can do: one of Mr. Atwood’s pickup trucks is here +at Sunset Vista. We can take it and run ahead of the train to Edaville, +about a mile. Want to? The railroad and Mr. Atwood’s auto road are side +by side along the foot of the reservoir. All right: you climb in back of +the pickup and get your Hell & Bowell flicker-box ready for action. I’ll +keep just far enough ahead so you can shoot the whole train. Ready? + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + In the quiet shade of the pine grove No. 7 backs sleepily onto her + train, ready for the daily grind again. +] + +Hang on! This tipcart doesn’t ride like _Rangeley No. 9_. She should +make a dandy picture back there--smoke rolling up over the pitch-pines +and the three varnished cars glittering in the sun. See ’em swing +through that reverse curve! + +See this big iron along here? Seventy-five pound steel, biggest ever +laid in two-foot track. Proportionately it’s equivalent to about +two-hundred pound rail in wide gauge track: heavier than anything made +yet. + +Getting some good shots? I hope the reflections in the water show up +clear; reservoir’s like a mirror. + +Take a quick peek over ’cross there: that’s Plantation Center station, +on the line we just went up over. Remember? The two lines are hardly a +hundred yards apart right here. Sometime Mr. Atwood may lay a connecting +track across this dike. Only a stone’s throw. Notice this big fill here: +all new grade across the corner of the swamp. Kind of sags in the +middle; will be filled and raised sometime. See No. 7 puffing up out of +there! + +Look: we’re beside the canal now. There’s the grove and yard ahead. +We’re coming in on that line I told you about--from across the canal. + +There’s the work train’s smoke. She came in ahead of us and it looks to +me like No. 4 engine is out there too. Where could she have been when we +left town? + +Take it easy: I’m trying to stop this jalopy. We’re back in the yards +again. Quite an array of power, eh? No. 7; the work train; No. 4 engine; +the railbus which beat us down from the Ball Park; and there’s even +little Plymouth No. 14 with a string of bog dumpcars. You couldn’t get +so much action short of North Station. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Look out--stand back! Here comes a freight train, cuffing the wind up + Mt. Urann with the little red kiboose lurching and swaying behind. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + The switch by the little reservoir, where trains may go left through + the grove, or around the curve through the woods to Edaville. No. 7 + is about to swing through the switch for the climb up the hill. +] + +All set? Then take a look at this Plymouth: all right, isn’t she? Mr. +Atwood bought her up to Quincy a year or so ago. Alec MacLellan, a +railroad fan, told him about her. You should have seen her then: about +the sorriest little mill you could imagine. No cab, no bell, no nothing. +Mr. Atwood’s crew took over and, patterning their dream-engine after +those big he-Plymouths, they built her into this trim little +cock-sparrow! + +For real economy she puffs black all over the ledger. Will haul two or +three cars like nobody’s business; will do shifting and light work as +well as a steam engine. One man can run her without continually getting +down to tend his fire. Has her limit, of course; but she weighs only +four tons. + +There: the work train’s going out; the passenger is hauling up to the +depot to swap passengers for her next trip; I think that No. 4 is going +out around the Edaville loop into the station that way. Why don’t we +ride in on her? + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + John Holt and Charlie Smith have invaded the sacred precincts of + pullman cars by bringing the sooty freight train right into Edaville + station--and see the crowd stare! +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + But those passengers hadn’t long to wait; the passenger train came in, + and see ’em pile aboard the open excursion cars for their ride + through Mr. Atwood’s blooming lands. It isn’t unusual for 3,500 + people to ride in a single day; sometimes 600 to a single train! +] + +LOOK OUT! Oh, heavenly days; _look_ at your shirt! + +Well, people just have to learn that an engine full of water will spew +that black slush all over you. Gosh! What a mess. Married? + +Jump on: and be careful not to spatter your shirtful all over me. + +Sit up there on the fireman’s shelf. There; how does this engine ride? A +little more jerky than No. 7 but still no worse than lots of wide gauge +pots I’ve been on. She’s got steam brakes. No. 7’s and 8’s are vacuum. +Those two-footers used all kinds of things for brakes, from modern air +to such childish devices as brakemen dragging their feet. They always +managed to stop, though. And now they’ve stopped for good--all excepting +the Edaville. + +There’s the parlor car, for instance: got air and vacuum both on her. +She used to run over the Sandy River and the Phillips & Rangeley, so +when they built her she had the kind of brakes used by each road--vacuum +and Westinghouse. No. 4 can pile you through the front window, with +those steam stoppers of hers! + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The excursion train is ready to leave. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The new station at Edaville is swarming with expectant people; No. 7 + puffs across No. 2 Bog to disgorge her crowd and take a new load on. + Often 600 automobiles are parked here at one time. +] + +Yes, these little pigs did a lot of work up there in northern Maine. You +should have seen them settle down to dragging a train of slate up the +hill. That Monson road always used link-and-pin couplers, too; never +changed over to automatic. I don’t know how they sidestepped the +Government laws, but they did. Common carrier, at that. Link-and-pin +couplers, stub switches, and hand brakes; just about as modern as a +ramrod rifle. Far as I know it was the last road left that hadn’t turned +the century. + +Here’s that switch again: he’s throwing it for the loop. In a minute +we’ll be backing up through the woods and into the station. Two tracks +there; we’ll clear the passenger. + +Quite a trip, wasn’t it? Have a good time? Everyone does; even old +timers who’ve railroaded for years. Mr. Atwood’s Edaville Railroad’s got +something they never saw before! + +We’re back. See the crowd on the platform! Soon’s the train is unloaded +there’s a fresh batch to take out. It’s like that all the time now. Lots +of folks keep getting back on again, riding all day. Mr. Atwood doesn’t +mind as long as there’s room for the new-comers. Wouldn’t some big +railroads enjoy a passenger trade like this? It sure costs plenty for +the Atwoods to give everyone these rides, but they’re like that: never +satisfied unless they’re doing things to make other people happy--kind +of sharing their good fortune with the world at large, you might say. +It’s not lost, though: all adds up to good cranberry advertising, and +cranberries is what makes Edaville the top-pucker plantation in the +world, and this manikin railroad a lucky survivor of a less lucky kind +of railroad design. Let’s go into the station. + +Why! Good afternoon, Mrs. Atwood; where’s the boss--Oh; I see him. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + The Plymouth Locomotive leaving the screenhouse with a supply of berry + boxes and a carful of pickers. Harvesting season, during the fall, + is a busy time on Mr. Atwood’s estate. +] + +There’s Mr. Atwood sitting up to the lunch counter with the boys, eating +steamed clams. Wonder that man doesn’t turn into a steamed clam. +Personally, I’d just as soon have baked chicken. Here: we’ll sit over by +the fireplace with those yarnsters, until the clams are gone. I’m tired, +anyway. Notice those things more after forty. + +Is it supper time? In half an hour the _Sunset Special_ will pull out +for her curfew run. That’s a pretty train. Sunset seems to show up +better out there where there’s plenty of room. We’ll stick right here +so’s not to miss it. + +See that headlight up on the wall? Big’s a boxcar. Came off one of the +old Bridgton engines when they changed to electric glims. This one’s +oil. Mr. Atwood has lots of relics in here. You’ve no idea what a show +he’s got! Only difference between he and Phin Barnum is that Atwood +isn’t trying to kid anybody. His is the real McCoy. + +Yes: ten little railroads all switched into one: the Edaville. Did you +ever stop to think why he named it that--_Edaville_? Can’t you guess? +Sure, that’s it: his own initials, E.D.A. Pretty cute, eh? + +Wait ’til I light my pipe ... + +Those old two-footers were some roads. Many of my happiest recollections +are of rides I had on the Wiscasset road and the Sandy River. Never saw +so much of the Bridgton line until the last year it ran. The Kennebec +Central checked out before I checked in, although I used to see their +tiny trains when I was a kid. I knew the little Monson--_the Two by Six_ +they called it, two feet wide and six miles long--but only after it got +kind of dilapidated. I’ve seen ’em all. And here’s the last one: using +the very same engines and cars that I used to ride on years ago. Seems +funny, too: to come down here and find ’em resurrected again. Those +little pikes tried so hard to climb up to the sun, and a bumping-post in +the sunset was the best they could do. The sunset of pint-size +railroads. + +Funny: here’s this last one, here in eastern Massachusetts; and seventy +some years ago the _first_ one got its christening within a few miles of +this very spot. Up in Billerica, where the B. & M.’s big shops are now. +Someone must have swung the bottle too hard and konked the little cuss +on its pituitary gland. Anyway, besides being a baptismal ceremony it +was a death blow too. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + A baby boxcar is gingerly loaded onto a Hall trailer at Bridgton + Junction, Maine, for its 200-mile jaunt down the Pike to South + Carver. Forty cars and engines made the trip this way--without + mishap. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Bridgton Yard was a sorry looking mess in 1945. A marked contrast to + their condition in Edaville today. Roland Badger’s therapy soon + restored them to their original splendor, eh? +] + +It was this way: a feller named George Mansfield from up Lowell way had +taken a trip over to Wales (coal-passing, most likely) and was pretty +well sold on the two-foot Festiniog Railway there. The Festiniog was the +very first of these flea gauges, and had been built fifty years before +George went back. He couldn’t see why they wouldn’t be just as +successful over here; kind of miscalculated on his grand-children’s +idiosyncrasies, though. George returned to the New World as full of +ideas as a New Dealer. You might say he’d got narrow minded--two-feet +wide. He bla-blaad to everyone who’d listen and when they stopped +listening he hired a hall and gave away a new Ford on the lucky ticket. +He talked two-feet gauge. He may have even drawn chalk pictures. He +built a sample railroad in his back yard with two-by-four for rails. +Named it the Sumner Heights & Somethingwood Valley. Luckily he didn’t +have an eighteen hundred acre lot or the Edaville would be just another +backyard railroad today. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + A heterogeneous passenger train--conventional coaches, open-side cars, + and the rubberneck-wagons on the rear; all loaded with folks having + the ride-of-their-life. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Engineer’s-eye-view of the narrow track as the passenger train rattles + through the woods toward the Ball Field. +] + +The right people were impressed, apparently, because the folks of +Bedford and Billerica fell in with his tight ideas: and the first +genuine two-footer in the Western Hemisphere made the headlines. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + The Edaville R. R. has no bridges, but there are plenty of these + concrete pipes to cross during your ride. This “bridge” is being + installed near No. 1 reservoir. +] + +That was in 1877. They built the Billerica & Bedford Railroad, two feet +wide and eight miles too long. + +Its vicissitudes don’t mean much now excepting because it was the first +of these bobtailed scooters to puff into our history, and because that +christening wallop was so robust the little pike turned up its brogans +the very next year. Therein it suffered the doubtful honor of being not +only the first fly-speck choo-choo in North America, but also the first +one to ask official permission to abandon its entire line! + +George, though, hadn’t been idle. Instead of staying home minding his +baby he’d been rusticating in the wilds of Maine talking convincingly to +the railroad minded folks up there. In fact, the spacious old Jim Hill +sold ’em not only the idea, but the moribund Billerica & Bedford +Railroad as well! + +Yes: as a result of his glib missionary work the Sandy River Railroad +made a three point landing in Farmington, Maine, complete with the B. & +B.’s two forney locomotives, and handful of cars, and eight miles of +rail. That was the real beginning of down to earth two-footing. The +bantam railroad clicked up there, and it made good, too. Quicker than +you can spit they’d laid eighteen miles of track up through Strong to +Phillips, a good part of it on the seventy-four trestles that boosted it +over gullies and ravines, and forthwith began doing more business than a +beer-joint in Plymouth. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Rainy weather doesn’t dampen enthusiasm at Edaville, and plenty of + soggy folks enjoy (or seem to) their ride just the same. +] + +Folks were wild about it. The two-footer got kind of wild, too, because +it made a record by operating on fifty-five per cent of its gross +earnings. Darned few wide gauge roads ever did that! Today--well, if a +road breaks even everyone walks around the table shaking hands and +passing out seegars. + +Oh I could gab for hours about it: how those towns raised money to build +it on the express condition that trains be polluting the virgin air of +Phillips by November 20, 1879 or not one blankity-blanked penny would +they pay. And how, the night before, track still lacked half a mile of +the town line--but maybe all this moldy lore of sixty-eight years ago +doesn’t interest you as much as the Edaville of today--the _last_ +two-footer. + +[Illustration: + + (_Hosmer Photo_) + The de luxe coach “Elthea”. They even come in perambulators to ride + Mr. Atwood’s train! +] + +Eh? Did they make it before the fatal hour? You bet they did! Why, the +gang hove to that night with axes and oxen and the way they scattered +railroad track up that last half mile would make Mr. Atwood’s +track-layers look like sit-down strikers. More B. T. U.’s sparked off +that night than in the whole city of Boston. The little Hinckley engine, +twelve tons of brass and headlight, tottered behind the galloping track +gang and, just as the clock in the steeple dumped its jackpot, the last +rail clattered down; and Hinckley No. 1 fumed defiantly into Phillips. +The town’s check was good! + +(No thank you, Mr. Atwood; I can’t eat clam sandwiches and talk at the +same time. You eat it.) + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Ted Goodreau throws the switch, backing a work train into the gravel + pit. She’ll emerge from the spur with some 20 yards of sand for + ballasting purposes. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + This tiny Brooksville locomotive with 13 1-yard dumpcars was Mr. + Atwood’s construction train last year. +] + +As I was saying, almost before that first train got turned around there +was an avalanche of business. Exponents of the railroad were slapping +each other on the back and thumbing their beaks at the sour-puss +skeptics. A year or so later and all Franklin County was lathered up: +everyone wanted a railroad. + +Kingfield was first to get it. Somehow the Boston egg-men, A. & O. W. +Mead, got snarled in it. They began their Franklin & Megantic Railroad, +Strong to Kingfield, fourteen and a half miles, in 1884. It was a pretty +road. Full of curves as a chorus girl and lush with wild, bucolic +scenery. You could see Mount Abram looming up five thousand feet, and +Mount Bigelow was still higher. At Mount Abram Junction you could almost +spit on ’em, they were so close. + +This little pike didn’t swell with the financial pregnancy that busted +the more copious Sandy River shirt. The F. & M. was always broke. A +cussed feeling, too; take it from me. Several reorganizations and the +final exodus of the Mead boys made no difference. While they managed to +relay the original twenty-five pound rail with bigger thirty-five pound +stuff they did little grade improving or curve relocation. Track went up +and around with the whims of Mother Nature, and the old harridan whimmed +plenty in that rugged country. + +The snow they had! You should see some of the old pictures of +snow-fighting (Maybe Mr. Atwood has some here); it was nothing to see a +man’s head sticking out, and then learn that he was standing on top of a +boxcar. + +In the early ’90’s, under the paper name of Kingfield & Dead River, the +F. & M. built fifteen and a half miles of road from Kingfield up through +Carrabasset to Bigelow, a booming lumber town. Today Bigelow _ain’t_. +You just drive up through there and wonder where the place was. This +thirty mile line rivaled even the P. & R. in wild, rustic beauty. If +only those wintry hills could have been cranberry country! + +About this same time some other Massachusetts business men (See: the Bay +Staters were always the power behind these midget gauges!) dumped their +pennies into the twenty-nine mile Phillips & Rangeley Railroad, from +Phillips up over Redington Mountain to Rangeley. You should have seen +it. What a railroad. One reverse curve after another; three and four per +cent grades with Sluice Hill and the Devil’s Elbow going over five per +cent. Grand country, too: wooded hills spouting white-water +streams--where trout frolic in the rapids and thumb their little noses +at you. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Nancy Merritt sells Mr. Atwood’s souvenir tickets, and maybe her big + smile is why a thousand are often sold in a single day! You may ride + on the Edaville free, but the 5c souvenir tickets seem to be in + popular demand. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The cranberry train hauls up at a bog crossing, and a few boxes of + berries are loaded aboard. Mr. Atwood is more than pleased with his + little railroad’s utility value. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Big business today at 14-Acre Bog. About 30 truck-miles are reduced to + 4-boxcar miles when berries are hauled by train. The slogan + “Ship-and-Travel-by-Rail” is in full effect on the Edaville road. +] + +The P. & R., like the Sandy River, had kind of a Midas touch. Millions +of cords of pulpwood and millions more feet of timber and logs rolled +down the tortuous grades; sawmills were everywhere; boom towns, such as +Sanders. Old photos show Sanders, ten miles up on the P. & R., with +steam mills, stores, railroad buildings, boarding-houses and barns. +Frontier prosperity. But today: well, if you pushed along the old grade +you might find hidden ruins--a moss-covered foundation or a scrap of +rusty boiler plate. Not a building left. + +Purposive branch lines wandered through the woods, like stray cats. I +don’t know who used all the lumber but quantities of it rolled out over +the narrow gauge during the next thirty years. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Something novel in railroad tricks: a Grill Car. Rebuilt from a + standard boxcar this Grill dispenses with hamburgers, ice-cream, and + Pepsi-Cola, not only to the throng of Edaville guests but to Mr. + Atwood’s hungry employees as well. +] + +Once they had seventeen engines working, and few went out again at +night. Thirty-three men labored at the Farmington transfer loading +freight from little cars into big ones. Two and sometimes three baby +cars made one wide gauge load. + +I suspect that the same money was pretty much behind all these Franklin +County roads. In 1908 the big Consolidation came off: the F. & M., P. & +R., the Madrid, and the old Sandy River merged into the new Sandy River +& Rangeley Lakes. Three years later the Eustis Railroad joined up too, +giving the new S. R. & R. L. a total of 120 miles of line--logging +branches and all. Seventeen locomotives and nearly four hundred cars, +including Franklin County’s pride, the _Rangeley_. + +In 1911 the Maine Central scratched its chin reflectively, and bought +the outfit, lock, stock, and ramrod. + +In some ways this was a good thing. The big road made some money, and +they did a lot of improving such as heavier rail, new engines and cars, +as well as kind of guiding the baby to complete maturity. That caboose +you just saw on the work train was one of the cars they built. + +This parentage lasted eleven years. For some reason, in 1922, the Maine +Central sold the jack-rabbit to a pair of local tycoons. These boys, a +Kingfield lumber king and a Gardiner banker, owned it right through to +the end, in 1935--June 29, to be exact. + +Maybe I fumbled by telling you about the Sandy River first. She was the +grand climax to the others. A modern railroad, abbreviated down to +brownie size. Regular engines with eight-wheel tenders. Parlor cars. +Telegraph. Air brakes. And a super machine shop where engines could be +completely taken down. Most impressive of all, perhaps, crews who talked +railroad, lived railroad, and could defy any others to out-railroad +them! + +The other roads weren’t; not so much, anyway. They used vacuum brakes or +simply stuck a hickory in the brake-wheel and laid back on it. Their +operation was more short-line, jerkwaterish, and patchy. The Bridgton & +Saco River (and if you don’t mind, that’s pronounced SAW’ko) was nearest +to the Sandy River in this kind of excellence. Maybe due somewhat to +Maine Central influence, too. While the Wiscasset road was the only one +to have a separate-tender engine like the Sandy River’s it wasn’t nearly +as up to date and spic and span as the Bridgton line. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Back home. Little No. 4 engine ready to leave Monson for her morning + trip to the Junction, before wars and depressions laid her low. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + End of the trail. Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington No. 8 never + turned a wheel again, after this wreck at Whitefield Iron Bridge in + far-off 1933. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + The New Year’s Special puffs through the frosty Cape Cod air, telling + the cockeyed world that miser gauges can run in the snow. +] + +The B. & S. R. was built in 1882. The first train into town was on +January 21 the following year, “packed with exultant citizens and +numerous representatives of the rising generation”, so writes William +McLin in his interesting history _The Twenty-four Inch Gauge Railroad at +Bridgton, Maine_. The Edaville gets demonstrations of that “rising +generation” idea, too! + +This sixteen mile line ran from the Maine Central at Hiram up through +some pretty wild country to Bridgton, and fifteen years later another +six miles to Harrison was added--along the shores of Long Lake. They ran +lots of trains, too. See that old time card over here on the wall: looks +like a lineup of Braintree Locals. + +They made money. Probably that’s why the Maine Central bought it in +1912. Like the Sandy River’s case, they made lots of improvements +although the little tike was in pretty good shape anyway. The machine +shop was in Bridgton but it wasn’t on a par with the Sandy River’s +Phillips shop; most of the heavy work went to Thompson’s Point for the +Maine Central to do. Mr. Atwood has that machine shop here in Edaville +now. + +Well, by this time people must have decided that George Mansfield was a +second Moses and that his slim gauge railways puffed right into Heaven. +Infection had spread like chicken-pox. The Monson Railroad, ’way up +Moosehead Lake way, had been built in 1883, six miles long with a couple +of miles in slate quarry spurs. + +Monson slate went all over the world. Still does. Bathtubs, shingles, +switchboards, and gravestones. Kind of a womb-to-tomb business, you +might say. Far as I know the Monson never aspired beyond the horizon, +whereas its contemporaries planned to go clear to hellangone, although +none of ’em ever got there. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + W. W. & F. No. 4 and 11-car train (including the last Railway Post + Office on 24-inch gauge track) leaves Wiscasset for her 44-mile run + to Albion, in 1932. +] + +In a way, though, I suppose they _all_ got there. The bubble busted +twenty-five years ago and the Golden Age was on skids. Hard to say +whether competition, cussedness, or just plain luck was the reason. +Whatever it was, their teeth fell out, ribs showed through, joints +ached, and Dr. Quack shook his head hopelessly. + +Calamity number one came in 1929. The smallest of the lot--baby of the +family, so to speak--took the colic and pegged out. The five mile +Kennebec Central. + +The K. C., built in the early 90’s, was used chiefly to haul things from +Kennebec steamers at Gardiner to the Soldiers’ Home at Togus, coal being +the biggest item. A competing trolley line from Augusta hadn’t helped +their lucrative passenger business and when the benevolent Government +awarded the coal haul to some trucks it didn’t leave the Kennebec +Central much to live for. So, she went in her sleep. Second of the +two-footers to go. The old B. & B. was first. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + What would Plymouth County think of snow like this? At Monson + Junction, however, 5-feet deep is an open winter. Little Monson + engines could buck the drifts as well as their B. & A. cousins, too! +] + +While I think of it: someone was asking about the little engine over to +Putnam, Connecticut. William Monypeny up to Cambridge owns it; bought +her from the W. W. & F. which had recently got it from the defunct +Kennebec Central. His mile of twenty-five pound rail also came up from +the K. C. (No: you can’t buy it. He wants it as much as you do!) + +That was the push-off. + +Four years later--at 7:23 in the morning of June 15, to keep these dates +straight--the forty-four mile Wiscasset road bit the dust. + +In a way the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway was the first +two-footer. It was chartered ’way back in 1854. Actually, though, the +narrow width wasn’t decided upon until just before construction began, +in 1894. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Bridgton No. 6 had been scrapped long ere Mr. Atwood thought of buying + the narrow gauge. +] + +In general interest, if not in physical excellence, I think this road +rated next to the Sandy River. Maybe its long haul influenced that. +Started as the Wiscasset & Quebec Railroad its history is a long +complaint of frustrations and tantrums. I won’t go into it because the +_Sunset Special_ is nearly ready to go. You mustn’t miss it. Anyway, the +W. & Q. was going to do big things: lay rails clear to Quebec Province, +have de luxe trains with diners, sleepers, and parlor cars to make the +_Rangeley_ look like a trapper’s camp. They were going to swipe the +million dollar grain haul away from the Grand Trunk--just like that. +Wiscasset has a fine harbor and is a little nearer Liverpool than +Portland, which was the basis for their stock-selling argument. + +While crews were laying steel up the Sheepscot valley other men were +building some old-histing great wharves at Wiscasset for the steamboat +line to New York. They never splashed a paddle but to hear stock +salesmen gab you’d have thought another Fall River Line was in the +making. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Boxcar 13--and she’s in luck to be at Edaville instead of rotting away + at Bridgton Junction. The Atwood line also has a boxcar numbered 1, + which is unusual. +] + +Its first hop was to Burnham, fifty-five miles up. Old Frustration set a +derail here: the Maine Central were opposed to a crossing of their +Belfast branch; so submissively and sulkily the little pike backtracked +to Week’s Mills (twenty-eight miles above Wiscasset) and began a line +from there to Waterville and Farmington, hoping to make the Quebec trip +with the help of Sandy River rails to Rangeley. However, the Maine +Central again boxed the W. & Q.’s flapping ears by refusing to let ’em +cross Maine Central tracks at Farmington to connect with the Sandy +River. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Steel to the West! Tracklaying on the Edaville last Spring. It was + near this point that the golden spike was driven. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + The Golden Spike. When the rails met, near the Ball Field, appropriate + ceremonies were held, including Mrs. Atwood taking a whack at the + golden spike (a whole lot of them, in fact) as construction men, + visitors, and the pitch-pine trees witness the event. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + These are the men who’ll guide your journey on Atwood soil; Assistant + Conductor Higgins, Conductor O’Neil, and Superintendent-Agent + Dunham, the last two from the New Haven railroad. +] + +By now the Wiscasset dwarf was a confirmed neurotic. It just threw a +fit, abandoned its grand ideas and miles of nearly completed line, and +testily began to operate over such track as it could be sure +of--Wiscasset to Waterville (actually to Winslow, on this side of the +river), and Week’s Mills to Albion. Shortly thereafter they discarded +even the Winslow line, and from then until 1933 the forty-four miles +from Albion down to Wiscasset was all that was left of the grandiose W. +& Q. Even this imposing name faded out to the jaw-breaking misnomer +Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington which folks sometimes called _Weak, +Weary & Feeble_; just as they dubbed the B. & S. R. _Busted & Still +Running_. Awful, wasn’t it? + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Dave Eldredge, Mrs. Atwood’s nephew, dishes hot dawgs and pop-sickles + over the Grill Car’s counter. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + This is what I call posing ’em! Mr. Atwood smiles between his brand + new Oldsmobile and his baby No. 4. +] + +The W. W. & F. was the only one of these little roads to keep the +Railway Post Office route. All the others--the Farmington & Rangeley, +and the Bridgton’s mailcar--were taken away during the other war. This +one, though, stayed to the last run. + +There were--let’s see: one, two, three ... there were ten stations on +the line, some being rail points for stages from other post-offices, +too. Must have been twenty or more offices served by this R. P. O. + +Its worst mess of all came in 1931 when a mortgage-monger who controlled +some timberlands up in Palermo got hold of the road. That’s a good +story, too, but we’ll have to skip it now except to say that the road +didn’t improve any under his ownership, and track got so rough there was +no fun riding on it. Coming down that morning, June 15, they’d just left +Whitefield station when _Crash!_--a broken rail. The tiny Portland +engine switched ends and dove down the bank toward the river. A flatcar +tail-feathered up behind her. The cream-car careened. The last Railway +Post Office wobbled feebly, jolted to its last stop, and settled into +the ballast for a good, long rest. + +That was the Weak, Weary & Feeble’s last trip. Wreck was never picked +up. Mr. Atwood may have some pictures of that, too. + +She was the second one of the Maine two-footers to go. + +In 1935 the Sandy River, with its excellent line, trim engines and cars, +and business possibilities dunked its fire and went home. That left two: +the Bridgton line and the little Monson. + +Wish I had time to tell you about the Bridgton’s last sickness. What a +time they had! The town owned it, you know. Most of the folks wanted to +junk it while a few enterprising souls hung on. In cahoots with some +railroad fans its president, Lester Ames, put up a lively scrap to save +the little line. Lasted a couple of years, that wrangling. First, the +railroad champions would be on top, and then their dark-complexioned +adversaries were eye-gouging or had a knee in the railroad’s bowels. It +looked bad. Hard telling how long it might have lasted but the _coup de +grace_ came suddenly when someone slipped through a deal with an +uninnocent junkman. Spikes flew. So did Mr. Atwood. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The moribund Bridgton line in 1941, when fan excursions and passionate + junkmen were running wild. Here No. 8 is ready to haul a crowd of + railroad-fans down the line. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + An Edaville work train climbs Mt. Urann past the probable site of the + Ball Field station. See Mr. Atwood’s snowplow hibernating at the far + end of the siding. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The Edaville Railroad will never be completed. New spurs and siding + beckon from isolated bogs. Here a crew is ballasting a new spur to + 31 Bog. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Engineer Knight and Fireman Young bat a freight train across the bog, + and will shortly return loaded with red, sour bog-nuggets + (cranberries, to you). +] + +He’d been keeping tabs on it anyway and when this junk-shark (_he_ came +from Massachusetts, too!) began wrecking things Mr. Atwood A-carded up +there, plum full of adrenaline, and managed to buy quite a lot of +equipment. No. 7 engine, some cars, and the turntable. Paid through the +nose for it, too. Worse still, after paying the money and assuming +ownership, this junk-expert would turn around and cut it up for scrap, +claiming he didn’t know that Mr. Atwood wanted it! Biggest wonder in the +world he didn’t put the torch to No. 7 engine. + +This was all in 1941. That fall the track was gone and the cars stored +at Bridgton Junction. The connoisseur who’d previously bought the parlor +car, Eric Sexton of Rockport, Maine, also bought some of these B. & S. +R. cars for the same reason--to preserve ’em for posterity. Another fan, +Edgar Mead, bought two or three. John Holt and Van Walsh, who’d fallen +in love with No. 8 engine, bought her. That greasy junkman sure cleaned +up on those fellers. In the end, however, Mr. Atwood owned it all and +got a corner on two-foot gauge railroads! + +Year ago last fall he arranged with the Somerville movers, C. E. Hall & +Sons, to bring the things down here. He’d talked with the railroad +people but there were car shortages then, and besides the Maine Central +had dismantled their siding there at the Junction. He’d have had to done +the loading, to I. C. C. specifications, whereas the Hall crews did it +if he shipped by truck. So, the last of the two-foot gauges came home to +Massachusetts--by truck! + +Quite a sight seeing a railroad whizzing down the Boston road. + +Newspapers and magazines played it up plenty. Still do, in fact. Mr. +Atwood’s name is in the news more than any railroad man since Peter +Cooper or Jim Hill. The idea of his little Edaville Railroad seems to +click. + +[Illustration: + + (_Atwood Photo_) + Not all Edaville business is out on the bog. Here Mr. and Mrs. Atwood + confer in the seclusion of their private office in the palatial + screenhouse. +] + +That’s about the story. The Edaville’s quite a railroad in its own +right, let alone because it’s the last of the two-foot gauges. It isn’t +completed yet, either. Doubt if it ever will be: there’ll always be a +new spur to build or a bog-siding somewhere to install. Maybe some new +equipment, too--such as a nice, new Plymouth diesel for the cranberry +freights. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + No. 4 heads a freight train into clear to allow the passenger job to + gallop by. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + No. 7 crosses some undeveloped bog. Maybe next year cranberry vines + will bloom over there in the brush. +] + +Eh? Sure: why not? What’s wrong with diesels? You fellers always get +emotional when someone says diesel. Want to see the Edaville go in the +red? This railroad (although you’d never guess it) isn’t a plaything; +it’s a plantation utility, designed to facilitate Mr. Atwood’s cranberry +business. The passenger train and the parlor car, and Sunset Vista, are +gestures he and Mrs. Atwood make from their own pockets to give people +some fun down here--and to have a little themselves. But he can’t run +his freight trains at a loss just to see coal smoke smudging all over +those nice red cranberries. Red’s a pretty color, but not on the ledger! + +Probably if the other two-footers had bought some Plymouth diesels +they’d all be running today. Lots of difference between coal at ten +bucks a ton and oil at ten cents a gallon. Personally I’m for it--a ten +ton, eight-wheel diesel Plymouth. Besides, that’ll save the steam +engines for Sunday and holiday passenger trains! + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + No. 7 when she was a girl at home. Here she waits at Bridgton Junction + for men to load mail and express into the baggage-car; then she’ll + breeze up the hills to Bridgton, 16 miles, in an even 40 minutes! +] + +Gosh! Here it is Six-thirty; they’re backing the _Sunset Special_ in. +Maybe Mr. Atwood would like to show you those pictures of old +two-footers in the few minutes that are left. I see he’s finished his +steamed clams now. + +Guess I’ll mosey onto the platform and see who’s in the crowd. Always +hoped Kilroy might be here sometime! + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The first 2-foot gauge enginette in America, Bedford & Billerica + “Ariel” No. 1. You see her here as Sandy River No. 1 less a + monstrous smokestack and goldleaf filigree. +] + +------------------------------------------------------------------------ + + + + + Appendix + + +You’d think I’d written a five-foot shelf of books instead of a small +travel-guide pamphlet, if Forewords, Introductions, and Appendixes are +any criteria. This is how it seems to stew out though, so it’s how +you’ll have to take it. Keep cool! + +Lots of you won’t be interested in this Appendix. It’s designed for the +fellers who’re more or less railroad minded and thirst for technical +details. It’s a brief critique about the gears and rods that made the +wheels go round, during those hectic, vortical years. A cursory account +of engines and cars and mileage that made up the Edaville’s immediate +predecessors. + +Here again we’ll have to condense the facts in favor of space. To +include a really comprehensive _expose_ of these historical +lines--locomotive rosters and dimensions, car measurements and +classifications, capitalizations, earnings and expenses, and +blow-by-blow reports of the septuagenary rise and fall, as well as +scale-drawings for model fans--would be a book in itself, and a +family-Bible size at that. No one but the most serious students of +railroad lore would read beyond the title page. Let’s try to jam a lot +into a few pages here. + + + EDAVILLE RAILROAD + +Just when the Edaville was conceived is a risky guess. Maybe in 1941 +when the moribund B. & S. R. prodded Mr. Atwood’s imagination. Maybe +forty years ago when, as a lanky young feller, he mused on the pleasure +of owning something better than rickety sections of portable track and +tiny one-yard dumpcars. + +He did something about it in 1941, anyway. They were busting up the +Bridgton road. He bought the biggest part of it. Wars came. You couldn’t +call your soul your own unless it was kept out of sight. Without an +AA-12-PDQ-RSVP-1/2 priority there was no such thing as moving things by +freight, and these coveted ratings weren’t being handed out to move +narrow gauge railroads from Maine to South Carver. Unless they moved +into the Community Scrap Drive, and I never understood how this one +escaped those zealous patriots. + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Important in pygmy power development were the little Moguls. The Sandy + River had engines with separate tenders as well as those like Mr. + Atwood’s--built all in one piece. +] + +It did have a tight squeak. Mr. Atwood was notified that his railroad +equipment might be seized anytime for Government use and for him to +leave it strictly alone. Engines and cars needed for self-defense--don’t +touch! + +Funny how it came out: A few weeks later he was advised he might protect +his ownership by moving everything to Carver at once. Mr. Atwood tartly +replied that such extravagant use of transportation facilities and +scarce gasoline, when our country was fighting for its life, wasn’t +becoming a patriotic gentleman. Mightn’t he wait until the wars were +done? An answer sizzled back! Henceforth he might not only do as he +pleased, but the government had oodles of railroad equipment they’d like +_to sell him_, war or no war. Would he buy? + +He wouldn’t; then. + +The wars petered out. We were allowed to use the gasoline again. Big +trucks and little ones headed north in the fall of 1945, and rumbled +back with loads of little cars. The City of New Bedford owned a private +railroad that once hauled coal to their Water Works pumping station, and +they agreed to sell. Two and a half miles of fifty-six pound steel. +Three miles more came down from the mountain grades of Parker-Young +Company’s logging road in New Hampshire. Ties from Maine and more from +the New Haven. Crews assembled. + +Some desultory track-laying began in 1946 but it wasn’t until late that +fall that a former New Haven track man lined up his gang, and work began +in earnest. In the car shops repairs were progressing, for the day when +trains would begin to run. + +Mr. Atwood did the engineering. He scooches to a transit as easily as +Farmer Jones milks a cow. He personally supervised everything else, too; +nothing was too small to escape his attention, no detail too mean for +his august decision. Mostly his own crews did the work. When cranberry +work could spare them they turned-to and became railroad men. Except for +the track boss no former railroad men were hired, although Badger might +as well have been an ex-Master Car Builder: he knew enough to be. + +The locomotive crews are Mr. Atwood’s own cranberry men, instructed in +their exotic duties and performing them with remarkable efficiency. + +Friends, visitors, and well-wishers have joined in offering suggestions +and criticisms to help the enterprise along. Mostly, though, it’s been a +series of inspirations plus years of secret planning from Mr. Atwood +himself. + +Today the physical properties of his railroad are: + +Miles of road: + + Main line 5.5 miles + Grove Cutoff 0.6 miles + Yards 1.0 mile + Total 7.1 miles + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + This was biggest of them all, Sandy River No. 23. My pet grief is that + Mr. Atwood didn’t go into the railroad business ten years sooner, + and catch some of these tricky little pigs when the S. R. & R. L. + went broke in 1935. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Gasoline rail-buses on the Sandy River. The further one, with the + trailer attached, is now on the Edaville. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The freight train waits while pickers scoop another box of berries. + I’ll bet their backs’ll ache before night! +] + +Engines: + + No. 12 1-ton Bog Engine, Model T Ford + 13 1-ton Bog Engine, Model A Ford + 14 5-ton Plymouth + 3 0-4-4T Vulcan ex-Monson R. R. No. 3 + 4 0-4-4T Vulcan ex-Monson R. R. No. 4 + 7 2-4-4T Baldwin, ex-B. & S. R. 7 + 8 2-4-4T Baldwin, ex-B. & S. R. 8 + +Cars, Passenger: + + No. G1 Model T Trackauto ex-S. R. & R. L. + G2 Model T Trackauto ex-S. R. & R. L. + G4 Reo Railbus + Baggage No. 31 ex-B. & S. R. 31 + Coach 15 ex-B. & S. R. _Pondicherry_ + 17 ex-B. & S. R. 17 (now named _Elthea_) + 18 ex-B. & S. R. _Mount Pleasant_ + 3 W. W. & F. 3 + Parlor 9 S. R. & R. L. _Rangeley_ + +Freight: + + Box: 15 cars + Flat: 14 cars + Excursion: 4 cars + Tank: 2 cars + Caboose 557 ex-S. R. & R. L. 557 + 101 B. & S. R. 101 + Snowplow 2 B. & S. R. 2 + Flanger 1 B. & S. R. + 4-wheel dump: 32 cars + Total number of cars, 80 + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + The berries go aboard. Boxcar 13 already has a load, and presently the + little train will meander down to Edaville screenhouse and the + graders will take over. +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Here is little engine No. 3 before she came to the Atwood family. Lots + of snow in Monson, eh? +] + +[Illustration: + + (_Moody Photo_) + Transferring sand from a “wide gauge” car to the narrow gauge, at + Monson Junction years ago. See the link-and-pin coupling on the + Monson flat. +] + + + BRIDGTON & SACO RIVER R. R. + +Chartered in 1881, built in 1882, opened in 1883. Extended to Harrison +1898. Maine Central purchased it 1912, sold it 1927. Reorganized it as +Bridgton & Harrison Ry. and new company assumed control in 1930. +Harrison line abandoned 1930. Entire line abandoned 1941. Cost to build +and equip approximately $200,000. Peak year of earnings 1921 when +revenue was $112,000. + +[Illustration: + + First train order issued on the Edaville; members of the National + Railway Historical Society made this trip, August 31, 1937. +] + +[Illustration: Edaville Sign] + +Miles of road: + + Hiram to Bridgton, 16 miles + Bridgton to Harrison 5 miles + +Engines: + + No. 1 0-4-4T Hinckley 1882 + 2 0-4-4T Hinckley 1882 Became W. W. & F. No. 5 + 3 0-4-4T Portland 1892 Became K. C. 3: W. W. & F. 8 + 4 0-4-4T Porter 1901 + 5 2-4-4T Portland 1906 + 6 2-4-4T Baldwin 1907 + 7 2-4-4T Baldwin 1913 Became Edaville 7 + 8 2-4-4T Baldwin 1924 Became Edaville 8 + +Cars: + + 2 Baggage, 1 Combination, 4 Coaches + 1 Caboose, 69 Box and Flat, 2 Tank, 1 Plow, 1 Flanger + + + BILLERICA & BEDFORD R. R. + +Chartered in 1876; built 1877. Abandoned Jan. 1878. Sold in entirety to +Sandy River R. R. + +Miles, 8.6. + +2 Locomotives, + + _Ariel_ 0-4-4T Hinckley 1877, became S. R. No. 1 + _Puck_ 0-4-4T Hinckley 1877, became S. R. No. 2 + +Coaches, 1; Excursion, 2; Combination, 1; Box, 1; Flat, 6. + + + SANDY RIVER & RANGELEY LAKES R. R. + +Sandy River R. R. chartered 1879, built 1879. 18 miles. + +Franklin & Megantic R. R. chartered 1884, built 1884. 15 miles. + +Kingfield & Dead River, chartered 1893, built 1894. 16 miles. + +Phillips & Rangeley R. R., chartered 1889, built 1890-91. 29 miles. + +Madrid R. R. chartered 1903, built 1903. 11 miles. + +Eustis R. R. chartered 1903, built 1903. 19 miles. + +The 1908 Consolidation of these roads formed the S. R. & R. L. system, +and including logging branches it gave the new company approximately one +hundred and twenty miles of line, of which the forty-seven mile +Farmington-Rangeley road, the thirty mile Strong-Bigelow line, and the +ten mile Eustis Branch had scheduled passenger trains. + +The S. R. & R. L.--or just plain _Sandy River_ as it always stayed in +the hearts of Franklin County--deserves a book in itself. Its history +and pictorial display would fill a big one. But here are the scantiest +of facts: With the Consolidation this new company inherited a galaxy of +equipment; whether or not all these units were renumbered into the new +S. R. & R. L. roster, or if some older ones were scrapped, is (and ever +will be, probably) a moot subject among railroad fans. I’ve spent +hours--yes, months, trying to track it down and willingly admit that I’m +bewildered and as uncertain as before. I admit, too, for the benefit of +serious fans who believe they’ve identified these old engines and cars, +that some logical and chronological sequences look pretty convincing; +and that’s all. There’s no proof, no positive evidence. I’m not +extending my neck. Here’s an all-time roster of motive power as complete +as I can find indisputable records to substantiate it. + +Locomotives: + + Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 are open to question. Probably F. & M. 1 and 2; S. +R. 1; and P. & R. 4 _Bo-peep_ were the culprits; but which were which no +one knows. + + No. 5 0-4-4T Portland Co. 1890? ex-S. R. 4 + 6 0-4-4T Portland Co. 1891 ex-S. R. 5 + 7 0-4-4T Portland Co. 1891 ex-P. & R. 1 + 8 2-4-4T Baldwin 1907 ex-S. R. 16 + 9 2-4-4T Baldwin 1909 + 10 2-4-4T Baldwin 1916 + 15 2-6-2 Baldwin 1891 ex-P. & R. 3 + 16 2-6-2 Baldwin 1892 ex-S. R. 2nd 3 + 17 0-4-4T Baldwin 1893 ex-P. & R. 2 + 18 2-6-2 Baldwin 1893 ex-S. R. 2nd 2 + 19 2-6-2 Baldwin 1904 ex-S. R. 8 + 20 0-4-4T Baldwin 1903 ex-Eustis 7 + 21 0-4-4T Baldwin 1904 ex-Eustis 8 + 22 0-4-4T Baldwin 1904 ex-Eustis 9 + 23 2-6-2 Baldwin 1913 + 24 2-6-2 Baldwin 1919 + +Sandy River 1st 3 was an O-4-4T Porter, sold to the W. & Q. in 1894. No. +6 was sold to the Kennebec Central about 1922 as their No. 4, and was +acquired by the W. W. & F. in 1933. + +Cars: Another blank wall. The company’s _schedule of property_, typed in +1935 for prospective scrap buyers, says they had 73 boxcars, 58 flats, +and 136 “other freight train cars”. My own observations around there +would place the number of boxcars at nearly twice 73. Several official +reports had given the total number of freight cars as 350 whereas this +_schedule_ amounts to only 267. Just another of those vicissitudes the +historian must bang his head against! + +As for those “other freight train cars” they were probably the swarms of +flats fitted with rack sides, for hauling pulpwood. Some may have been +the truant boxcars. Ho-hum. + +As for passenger cars, this august _schedule_ says “12 coaches, 3 +combination, and 2 baggage”. The 3 combinations and 2 baggage comes out +all right, but I’m nostalgicly moved to wonder where they hid all those +twelve coaches all the years I used to be over there. I was familiar +with five. To be sure, there were a couple of old, abandoned coaches and +one retired combination boarded up, and used as camps. But still, no +twelve. + +The _schedule_ lists six cabooses and four gasoline railcars. I’ve seen +eight cabooses, and ridden in five railcars. There were five snowplows +in service, and seven flangers. There were big turntables at Farmington, +Strong, Phillips, Madrid Station, Rangeley, and Kingfield. Three-stall +wooden enginehouses at Rangeley and at Kingfield, and another at Bigelow +before that Carrabasset-Bigelow section was abandoned about twenty years +ago. The big ten-stall brick house at Phillips is still there, used for +a woodworking mill. + + + MONSON RAILROAD + +Chartered in 1882; built in 1883. 6 miles. Abandoned 1945. + +Engines: + + Nos. 1 and 2, O-4-4T Hinckley 1882 + 3 O-4-4T Vulcan 1912 now Edaville 3 + 4 O-4-4T Vulcan 1918 now Edaville 4 + +Cars: 1 Combination; 28 flat and boxcars. 1 snowplow, 1 spreader. + + + KENNEBEC CENTRAL R. R. + +Chartered 1889; built 1890. 5 miles. Had no physical connection with any +other railroad, as its western terminus, Randolph, is separated from the +Maine Central’s “Lower Road” at Gardiner by the Kennebec River. Barges +unloaded Togus coal at the railroad coal docks, on the Randolph side. +The K. C. was also unique in having no ballast supply on their line. All +gravel was carted in to them, the same as coal would be. + +Engines: + + No. 1 0-4-4T Baldwin 1890 _Volunteer_ + 2 0-4-4T Portland 1891 + 3 0-4-4T Portland 1892 ex-B. & S. R. 3 + 4 0-4-4T Portland 1891 ex-S. R. & R. L. 6 + +Coaches, 2; Combinations, 2. Box, flat, and dropside gondolas, 13. Also +a freakish kind of snowplow-flanger rig. + +So, we’ll call this an introduction to a two-foot gauge history. Maybe +our more accomplished brethren will call it less complimentary names. If +the printer will correct the misspelled words, and I have any luck at +South Carver next week taking pictures, maybe _Edaville Railroad_ won’t +be so bad, after all. + +(I guess this is all.) + + + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 75376 *** |