Wiscasset – Burnham Railway
| Wiscasset ME-Burnham ME | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Route length: | in operation today: 3.5 km, ever in operation: 70.0 km, built 88.9 km |
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| Gauge : | 610 mm ( 2 foot track ) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Dual track : | - | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Society: | WW&F | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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The railway Wiscasset-Burnham is a railway line in Maine ( United States ). It is 88.9 kilometers long. The narrow-gauge railway has a track width of 610 millimeters (2 feet ) and is largely closed. A 3.5 kilometer long section in Alna is operated as a museum railway. In the former Albion train station , a 50-meter long track has been rebuilt.
history
The plans for a route in the Sheepscot River valley go back to 1854. Henry Ingalls then founded the Kennebec and Wiscasset Railroad and intended to build a railway line from his hometown of Wiscasset north to the Kennebec River . He later changed the northern destination of the railway line and the company was renamed several times. As Wiscasset and Quebec Railroad , the company was named when construction began from Wiscasset in June 1894. Ingalls chose the two foot (610 mm) gauge, which was already used on several narrow gauge railways in Maine.
On March 1, 1895, the first 45-kilometer section from Wiscasset to Weeks Mills Station in the municipality of China went into operation. On July 24th of the year Palermo was eight kilometers further , the China train station a further eight kilometers further on September 24th and Albion finally on November 4th, 1895. The entire route was now 70 kilometers long. The further construction in the direction of Burnham proceeded rapidly, but stopped abruptly in front of the Burnham Junction – Belfast railway line . The Maine Central Railroad , which ran operations on this route, refused to allow the competing narrow-gauge railroad to cross the route. A bridge structure would have been too expensive for Wiscasset & Quebec, which is why the line could not be continued. The Maine State Railroad Commission approved a provisional level crossing, but it had to be replaced by a bridge by July 1, 1898. For financial reasons, the railway company decided not to continue the construction, as additional construction work would have been necessary to secure the route in the swamps along the Sebasticook River . Although the entire line to East Benton station was completed, it was never opened because the station was about two kilometers east of the village.
The railway company was renamed several times after the set goal of reaching Quebec had been put aside. From 1907, the company traded under its final name Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway . The railroad yielded only moderate earnings, and after the only operational locomotive 8 with the mixed train to Wiscasset derailed after a track break and crashed into the Sheepscot River on June 15, 1933 , operations were stopped. In the following year the tracks were dismantled and scrapped. Many of the vehicles were taken to other railways and some are still operational today.
At the end of the 1980s, railway enthusiasts tried to rebuild part of the route. Construction began in 1991 and the Railway Museum was soon opened on the site of the former Sheepscot station in Alna . In August 2001, the USMC Marine Wing Support Squadron 472, Detachment B rebuilt the Humason Brook Trestle, a yoke bridge north of Sheepscot at km 9.3. At the end of 2002 the 2.7 kilometer Sheepscot – Alna Center route was reopened. At the Alna Center stop , a transfer track was built that never existed during regular operation of the railway. Every year in April and October, the museum organizes so-called “Track Extension Weekends”, at which volunteers lay tracks and thus extend the route by a few hundred meters every year.
In Albion, the Albion Historic Society rebuilt the old train station and around 50 meters of track in October 1998.
Route description
The route begins at the Port of Wiscasset . She crossed on a nearly 500-meter-long Trestle to Clarks Pond . The piles of the bridge are still visible in the water today. The actual terminus consisted of a small station building and a wooden platform that was on a small island in the lake at the intersection with the Portland – Rockland railway line . Directly at the train station, the route crosses another part of the lake over a demolished bridge and headed north towards Alna. Shortly before the Sheepscot train station, the route is covered by a reservoir. In Sheepscot on Cross Road is the Railway Museum and the railway restoration and maintenance workshop. The museum route begins here.
The museum trains will be implemented in Alna Center, but from there they will advance backwards into the already completed section in the direction of Head Tide. The route continues northwards, but is completely overgrown. In Head Tide , the route crosses the Sheepscot River and now runs along its eastern bank. At North Whitefield , part of the route was reused for the construction of the West River Road. A short distance north of the local train station, the train crosses the northwestern tip of Clary Lake and a few kilometers further on again across the Sheepscot River. The railway now runs along a tributary of the Sheepscot further north to Weeks Mills . The Weeks Mills – Winslow railway branched off here until 1915 .
The route to Burnham continues northeastward and crossed at Coles the Bog Creek . A few kilometers north, the route reaches Lovejoy Pond , on whose eastern bank it continues. Immediately north of the lake is the Albion train station, where the train service ended. The route continues northwards and crosses a tributary of the Sebasticook River before East Benton . The track construction had stopped in East Benton, but the continuing route had already been leveled and prepared for the route construction. From here it runs almost in a straight line through an extensive swamp area. Today a forest path uses the alignment. Shortly before Burnham terminus , the line crosses the Burnham Junction – Belfast railway .
passenger traffic
The timetable of September 28, 1913 provided for two pairs of trains running on weekdays from Wiscasset to Albion and back. One of the train pairs operated as a mixed train . The branch line to Winslow was apparently no longer served by passenger traffic at that time. The travel time for the Wiscasset – Albion route was two hours and 40 minutes for the pure passenger train and three hours and 40 minutes for the mixed train, which corresponds to an average cruising speed of 26.25 and 19.09 km / h, respectively.
According to the last official timetable from April 1933, there was only one working pair of Wiscasset – Albion passenger trains that took three hours to complete the route.
literature
- Mike Walker: SPV's comprehensive Railroad Atlas of North America. New England & Maritime Canada. Steam Powered Publishing, Faversham 1999, ISBN 1-874745-12-9 .
- Robert C. Jones, David L. Register: Two Feet to Tidewater. Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway. Expanded and updated edition. Vermont Evergreen Press, Burlington VT 2002, ISBN 0-9667264-3-X .
- Robert M. Lindsell: The Rail Lines of Northern New England. Branch Line Press, Pepperell MA 2000, ISBN 0-942147-06-5 .
- Robert L. MacDonald: Maine Narrow Gauge Railroads . Arcadia Publishing, Charleston SC 2003, ISBN 0-7385-1179-X .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issued November 1913. Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railroad. Page 60.
- ↑ Official Guide of the Railways and Steam Navigation Lines of the United States, Porto Rico, Canada, Mexico and Cuba. Issued February 1934. Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway. Page 107.