Androscoggin and Kennebec Railway
The Androscoggin and Kennebec Railway was an interurban streetcar enterprise in Maine ( United States ) and with a route network of 258 kilometers of the largest tram operation in Maine. In addition to overland routes, there were city lines in Bath , Auburn , Lewiston and Augusta .
history
The later Androscoggin & Kennebec was initially founded as the Auburn, Mechanic Falls and Norway Street Railway and renamed the Lewiston, Augusta and Waterville Street Railway on April 3, 1907 . On April 24 of the same year it took over the three road operations in and around Lewiston:
- Lewiston, Brunswick and Bath Street Railway (opened 1881–1902, overland route Lewiston – Brunswick – Bath and six city lines in Lewiston and Auburn and one city line in Bath )
- Augusta, Winthrop and Gardiner Street Railway (opened in 1890, routes Augusta – Gardiner, Augusta – Winthrop, Augusta – Togus, city line in Augusta)
- Auburn and Turner Railroad (opened in 1905, Auburn – Turner route)
Around 1908, the company opened the overland route from Auburn to Mechanic Falls . In 1908 the line from Lewiston to Augusta also went into operation. In 1913, the railway acquired the Brunswick and Yarmouth Street Railway , which in 1902 had opened a tram route between its eponymous cities and had a connection to the Portland tram in Yarmouth .
In 1919 the railway company went bankrupt and was reorganized as the Androscoggin and Kennebec Railway . The branch line to Winthrop was the first line of the network to be closed in 1928. It was followed by the route to Yarmouth in 1929. On August 1, 1932, the company shut down almost the entire network. All that remained was the city network in Lewiston / Auburn, the routes from this network to Sabattus, Mechanic Falls and Turner, and the overland route Lewiston – Bath. The latter was shortened on May 15, 1937 to the section from Lewiston to Lisbon Falls. At the end of 1940 tram traffic ended on the remaining network. Only the Lewiston – Lisbon Falls route was operated until September 1, 1941, already since April 1 of that year by the legal successor of Androscoggin & Kennebec, the Lewiston-Auburn Transit Company .
literature
- George W. Hilton and John F. Due: The Electric Interurban Railways in America. Stanford University Press, Stanford CA, 1960. ISBN 0-8047-4014-3
- Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell, MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .
- First Annual Report, Public Utilities Commission, State of Maine. Sentinel Publishing Co., Waterville ME, 1915. Pages 182-4.