Aroostook Junction – Presque Isle railway line
| Aroostook Junction NB – Presque Isle ME, status 1999 |
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| Society: | last AVR | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Route length: | 54.7 km | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Gauge : | 1435 mm ( standard gauge ) | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Tracks: | 1 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The Aroostook Junction – Presque Isle railway line is a railway line in the Canadian province of New Brunswick and Maine ( United States ). It is 54.7 kilometers long. The standard gauge line has been closed and dismantled.
The emerging industrial towns of Presque Isle and Caribou were still without a railway connection in the 1870s. The nearest railroad was along the Saint John River in Canada and was under construction at the time. The New Brunswick Railway was approved in 1874 for a branch line along the south bank of the Aroostook River to Presque Isle. Like the entire network of the company, this railway was also to be built in Cape gauge (1067 mm). The Aroostook River Railroad was founded for the section in Maine .
In 1875 the first section of the railway line to Fort Fairfield went into operation together with the part of the main line that followed in Aroostook Junction. Caribou was reached in 1876, where further construction initially stopped. In 1881 the New Brunswick Railway converted its entire route network to standard gauge , including the branch line to Caribou. In the same year, the extension to Presque Isle went into operation, with which the line was completed. In 1890 the Canadian Pacific Railway leased the line and has been in operation ever since.
In 1895 the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad (BAR) also reached Presque Isle and Caribou, but track connections were initially not built. The BAR route ran on the other bank of the river. In 1910, however, a track connection to the Aroostook Valley Railroad was established , an overland tram that built a branch line to the Canadian-Pacific route. The handover of cars and passengers took place at Washburn Junction station. After the construction of the BAR route, Presque Isle and Caribou could be reached much faster from the big cities on the east coast, especially since there were even sleeping cars running through to New York in summer. From around 1920 onwards, only one working pair of trains was sufficient to handle the passenger volume on the Aroostook Junction – Presque Isle line. Passenger traffic ended around 1940.
After a bridge over the St. John River and thus the route south of Aroostook Junction was destroyed by flooding in 1987, the Canadian Pacific closed the now isolated branch route to Presque Isle. In order to continue to have a siding to the railway network, the Aroostook Valley Railroad acquired the section from Washburn Junction to the former CP terminus at Presque Isle, where the BAR built a short connecting track. This traffic ended in 1993 and the last remaining section of the line has now also been closed.
credentials
- ^ Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 1999, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
literature
- Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .
Web links
- Canadian Pacific Railway (English)