Presque Isle – West Caribou railway line

Presque Isle ME – West Caribou ME, as of 1999
Route length:	36.4 km
Gauge :	1435 mm ( standard gauge )
Dual track :	%
Society:	MMA
Legend from Mapleton {0} to Presque Isle (MMA) (AVR Junction) (0) Skyway Industrial Park {3} | (1½) BAR Junction 0.00 Presque Isle ME AVR Station Presque Isle Stream approx. 1 West Presque Isle ME (Dyre Street) today's end of the route 1 | (3½) Skyway Junction from Washburn Junction 3.22 Presque Isle Junction ME 4.42 Rands ME 8.54 Park Siding ME Aroostook River 11.38 Crouseville ME 13.87 Adaline ME 16.72 Bugbee ME Connection to the Squa Pan – Stockholm line 18.33 Washburn ME to Perham Road 24.77 Carson ME to Sweden 28.56 Sands ME 30.80 Jacobs ME 33.18 Paul's ME 36.40 West Caribou ME

The railway Presque Isle Caribou West is a railway line in Maine ( United States ). The standard gauge route is 36.4 kilometers long. In Presque Isle there is also an approximately 6.5 kilometer long industrial connecting railway to the Skyway Industrial Park ( Skyway Branch ) with a connection to the Mapleton – Presque Isle railway line . The actual railway line from Presque Isle to West Caribou has been closed and dismantled, only the Skyway Branch and the connecting railway are still used by the Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway .

history

Arthur R. Gould , who owned several paper and wood industries in the Presque Isle and Washburn area , wanted a direct rail link between the two places. Since the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad (BAR) already served Presque Isle and had a monopoly right that no other railways were allowed to be built on railroad-owned land within 15 kilometers of their routes, only one railroad remained in the public road space. In 1902, he applied for a concession to build an electric railway from Presque Isle to Washburn in the subgrade as well as a branch from Washburn to Wade ( Wade Branch ), which should be built on its own track. After legal disputes with the Bangor & Aroostook, the state of Maine issued the necessary permits and Gould founded the Aroostook Valley Railroad . Since the Maines traffic authority did not take the monopoly regulation very seriously, Gould was able to change the route several times, so that the final version, which was laid down in 1903, only included about one and a half kilometers in the road surface. In 1908 the financing was secured and it took until the spring of 1909 before construction began.

The official opening of the railway line took place on July 1, 1910. The tram depot was built at the West Presque Isle freight yard. The actual route start, however, was Presque Isle station next to the BAR station, where there was also a transfer station to Bangor & Aroostook. Rail connections were initially not built in Presque Isle or Washburn, which the BAR had reached from the southwest in the same year. The route was single-track with evasion in the road surface. The two passenger railcars initially procured ran with 1200 volts direct current, which the railway obtained from a hydroelectric power station in Aroostook Falls , which also belonged to Arthur Gould. Initially, eleven trains a day ran between Presque Isle and Washburn. The journey time was one hour.

In 1911, Gould requested the extension of the line on its own track to Sweden , which was approved despite protests by the BAR and opened on December 9th of that year. Shortly afterwards, Gould also received the concession for an extension from Carson to West Caribou - again accompanied by legal disputes with the BAR. This line went into operation in 1912. The Carson – Sweden section became a Sweden Branch .

At the beginning of the 1920s, the monopoly right of the BAR ended and the AVR relocated its route completely from the subgrade to its own track body next to the road. At the same time, a rail link to the BAR was built in Washburn. In 1932 the Canadian Pacific Railway acquired the AVR and with it the Presque Isle – West Caribou line. However, the operation continued to run by the AVR.

In 1941, an air force base was built west of the town of Presque Isle, to which the AVR laid a non-public electrified connecting railway, about 3.5 kilometers long, which was initially referred to as the US Air Force Branch . After the end of World War II, the air force base was converted into a regional airport and the barracks became the Skyway Industrial Park. The connecting railway remained to connect this industrial park and was now called Skyway Branch .

In July 1945 the railway company acquired two GE 44-ton switcher diesel locomotives, which have been pulling the freight trains ever since. In the following year, on August 7, 1946, the AVR stopped the passenger traffic that last consisted of three daily train pairs and dismantled the electrical systems that were no longer needed, as well as the route between the passenger and freight station in Presque Isle. The passenger station was sold to the town of Presque Isle, which built a car park on the site, and the bridge over the Presque Isle Stream was demolished.

Rail traffic between Park Siding and West Caribou ended in February 1982, and it was finally shut down five years later. As a result, the track connection to the BAR was also lost. In order to connect the Skyway Industrial Park more directly to the BAR network, the AVR built a three-kilometer link in 1992 that branched off from the Skyway Branch and flowed west of Presque Isle into the Mapleton – Presque Isle railroad . As a result, traffic between Park Siding and Presque Isle was suspended and the route closed in 1993. On April 26, 1996, the AVR ceased operations and sold the remaining connecting line and the connecting track to the BAR to the town of Presque Isle, which it leased to the BAR. The Montreal, Maine and Atlantic Railway (MMA), which the BAR took over, has been operating connecting goods on the Skyway branch since 2003 .

Route description

The route begins in Presque Isle, west of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad station, or now the MMA, and heads north. Directly north of the terminus, the line crosses the Presque Isle Stream. The bridge was demolished in 1946. After about two and a half kilometers, the route reaches the Skyway Junction , where the goods connection to the industrial park joins from the west. A few hundred yards further was the triangle of tracks that branched off the route to Washburn Junction. From here the route runs along the Aroostook River , which is crossed shortly before Crouseville .

In the urban area of Washburn , the line runs parallel to the also disused Squa Pan – Stockholm railway , to which a rail link has existed since the 1920s. The never-completed Wade Branch branches off north of the station . The route continues north to Carson , where the junction to Sweden continues north. The route to Caribou turns east and after another twelve kilometers reaches the town of Caribou . The West Caribou terminus was in the Woodland district on Washburn Street. There was no connection to the Bangor & Aroostook train station, which was about a mile away.

attachment

credentials

1. ^ Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 1999, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
2. ↑ Kilometrage of: Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issue June 1916. Page 52.

literature

• Charles D. Heseltine, Edwin B. Robertson: Aroostook Valley Railroad. History of the Potatoland Interurban in Northern Maine. Robertson Books, Westbrook ME 1987.
• Edward A. Lewis: American Shortline Railway Guide. 5th edition. Kalmbach Publishing, Waukesha WI 1996, ISBN 0-89024-290-9 ( Railroad Reference Series 17).
• Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .

Web links

• History of the Maine Railroad