The End of the Line

Tuesday 28th August

As I mentioned in my last post, a visit to the old Franklin and Megantic was high on my list of priorities. A little bit more history is in order here, as one of the interesting things about the two footers is in the machinations of getting them built in the first place.

The original Sandy River Railroad was completed in 1879, and ran from Farmington to Phillips, via Strong. Some five years later, the Franklin & Megantic was chartered. Shortly afterwards, construction began from a junction with the Sandy River at Strong, up to Kingfield, some 15 miles to the northeast, and through some fairly challenging terrain, including one section where the grade was 5%!

By 1894, the owners of the F and M had built an extension from Kingfield [1] to Bigelow [2], via Carrabasset [3], a further 15 miles or so north and then west. This extension was built under a separate charter, and was officially known as the Kingfield and Dead River Railroad. This despite being owned and operated by the F and M, and never having any of its own equipment. A lot of interesting financial murkiness lay behind these smaller lines, which is very well documented in Jones' 'Two Feet Between the Rails' - a hefty and very comprehensive history of the entire Sandy River system.

the Kingfield and Dead River RR

My own layout back home, based on the Bigelow to Carrabasset section, is set in 1919, well after the merger, but I've chosen to call it the Kingfield and Dead River Railroad, in part to allow for a slightly altered version of real history so I can justify a few departures from reality in my modeling - for example using equipment from other lines, which the K and DR 'acquired' for their own uses. If anyone is interested, I can expand on this alternate history another day.

Meanwhile, back to the 21st Century. After breakfasting at a funky little cafe on the outskirts of Kingfield, and armed with two sets of fresh camera batteries, I headed toward Bigelow.

One objective of today's mission was to get some good panoramic photos of the area, for future use in a backdrop for the layout. How's that for authenticity? So, a gentle cruise was in order, earmarking potential sites for capture on the way back, when the light would be better.

An easy 20 minutes, mostly following the Carrabasset River, brought me to Bigelow Station Rd, which occupies the original right of way, and right next to it, Bigelow station itself - not much altered from when this part of the line was abandoned in 1923.

Bigelow Station - now a holiday home. The road out front is on the old ROW.

A few metres further down the road I came across the remains of the old Section House, which the track maintenance crew used as their base for looking after this section of the line. Plans for this building were published in a recent issue of Maine Two Foot Quarterly. The plans had me scratching my head a bit, as the arrangement of a lean-to attached to the back of the building was not totally clear, but seeing it in flesh cleared that up nicely.

Bigelow Section House

Another useful acquisition at the convention provided me with some more period photos of this structure, and the general area, so I've got plenty of good reference material to help with my modeling endeavours. In fact if you scroll down to the bottom of the linked page, you can see the very photos to which I refer.

As a bit of a sidebar, I had the pleasure of meeting both book author Peter Barney and publisher Tim Mulina at the convention. I'm just going to have to do some more name dropping as I go along here, because in the rarified world of 2 foot modeling, all the 'Rock Stars' were there. And one didn't have to act like a groupie to enjoy a chat with them, either - all thoroughly nice people.

After finishing exploring Bigelow, it was back on the road, with frequent stops for those background photo ops.

Quite by chance, I found Huston Brook, and what I assume was the original RR bridge on what is now another snowmobile trail.

Huston Brook Bridge

Next stop was Carrabasset, which was pretty much silent as to it's RR past, but very pretty nonetheless.

Looking north up the Carrabasset River. I believe that's Mt Bigelow in the background.

As you can see from the photos, I have been very lucky with the weather in Maine, and apart from that one very welcome evening thunderstorm, have been blessed with blue skies and warm weather.

Back to Portland

Heading south again, I passed through Kingfield one last time, and after a fruitless attempt to locate the old Car Shed, the only RR building remaining there, I headed for Portland. I took a somewhat more direct route than on the way up, and arrived back mid afternoon, in time to check back into my old digs at the South Portland Econolodge, and then went off to the Maine Mall in search of a haircut - I really needed to lose my NZ 'winter coat'.

I was pretty shagged out by this point, so I got some takeaways from 'The Scottish Restaurant', and headed back to the hotel for a bit of vegeing in front of TV (66 channels of sh!t to choose from). Then, another early night - tomorrow being the official start of the convention!

5 Star Whistle Stop Bus Tour of the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR

Monday 27th August

An early start from Kingfield [7], and a leisurely drive the 20 odd miles to Farmington [1] led me to the parking lot of the 'Narrow Gauge Theater' on the very spot where the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR interchanged with the standard gauge Maine Central. Not much evidence of what disappeared in the '30s remains, but was there was a bus, a bunch of other narrow minded railfans, and Gary Kohler - author, publisher, and researcher of 2 foot history - the man behind today's edutainment.

Today's map will attempt to show the route of the Sandy River, as best as I can with a road oriented mapping program - it should give you an idea of the ground we covered, as well as the bits we didn't have time to see (Strong & Phillips ended up with two ID numbers, to make the route came out more or less right).

Simplfied Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR System Map

We left Farmington [1] bound for Strong [2,6], with a brief stop at South Strong on the way, all the while accompanied by a commentary from Gary as to what used to be where. It's all rather confusing, and road realignments and changes of ground levels over the years make it a bit of a challenge to relate to.

There are 3 original RR related buildings still at Strong, the largest of which is a toothpick factory. Imagine how many toothpicks you could fit into a boxcar - even a wee narrow gauge one! With a squint, and a bit of imagination, I could figure out where the tracks must have been, but in all honesty it didn't bear much resemblance to the many period photos I have of the place.

Next stop was the main yard at Phillips [3,5], where the old depot and car shop remain, and for the really keen, the remains of the old turntable pit, buried in the weeds down from the depot.

Phillips Depot, HQ of the SRRL.

Next stop was the old Phillips upper yard, just across the river, and originally the base of the Phillips and Rangeley, another of the original pre-merger lines. It is currently the site of the 'modern' SRRL, and the historical society had a treat waiting for us!

Our train awaits - the engineer is a real Sandy River man - great(?) grandson of Master Mechanic Stinchfield from back in the line's heyday.

Waiting at the station in full steam was Monson #3, on lease to the SR&RL, with a 19th century passenger car and caboose waiting to take us up the line to the 'old stone fort', now the site of a wonderful restoration effort. The crew put on a grand show for us, switching a freight train and doing a few run-bys.

Making up our freight train

The new 'old stone fort' - built on the foundations of the original structure

Freight train run-by in the meadow

After an all too quick hour or so had passed, Gary was starting to get a bit agitated. We were having fun, but were running well late for our lunch at Saddleback ski resort, just east of Rangeley. So, back on the bus, and off we went. By this time my camera batteries had unceremoniously given up the ghost, so you will be spared any more photos of the day's activities.

Late or not, the buffet lunch was very nice, and I got chatting to a bunch of guys from Washington DC, who model Colorado 3' narrow gauge in Nn3 - that's N scale (1:160), on 6.5mm track gauge. They had a modular layout on display at the convention, which was spectacular, not least because of the tiny size of the models! It ran pretty well too - having modeled in N scale standard gauge, I'm well aware of the challenges inherent in getting reliable operation with these small models. Physics, and the inverse cube law work agin us here.

After lunch it was down to the site of Rangeley station [4]. Once again, not a lot left, but we did enjoy a hilarious few minutes when our bus snagged some low hanging phone lines,trying to negotiate a goat track we really had no right to be on. Never mind - we extricated ourselves without harm to bus or wires, and our driver deserved a big round of applause for boldly going where no bus had gone before.

Next, it was off to Marbles station, right at the end of the line. In days gone by, it served the Rangeley Lake House - a huge hotel, where rich Bostonians would ship themselves and their families off to for the summer. The station itself, now a private residence, is a cute little stone building with a turret. I didn't get any photos, but you can see some here

The lakes area really is spectacularly beautiful, and I can see why the 'rusticators' would have thought it worthwhile to make what must have been a fairly arduous trip a century ago.

Next we headed back south towards Phillips, and a stop off at Toothaker Pond, and Madrid Junction. The Madrid RR was another of the predecessor lines incorporated in the big '08 consolidation, and existed like a lot of the branches, only as long as there was timber to be hauled out of the woods. The junction was the site of a huge sawmill for a number of years, with the pond itself used as a log pond to facilitate getting the fresh cut timber from the RR log dumps up into the mill.

By now, the afternoon was getting on, so sadly we bypassed the old F&M, from Strong to Kingfield and beyond to Bigelow, and headed back to Farmington. This was a bit of a disappointment to me, as the F&M is the bit I'm modeling, but I remedied that oversight next day, under my own steam (metaphorically speaking :-).

At Farmington, it was time to bid adieu to my traveling companions. Many of them I would see again later in the week, back at Portland, but for this tired little pixie, it was back to the Herbert, dinner and beddie-byes.

Slate Hauling, and a Grand Old Lady

Sunday, 26th August

After an agreeable breakfast at 'Moosehead Lake Lodge' [1] and a pleasant chat with Jack (I was his only guest the previous night), it was time to wend my way just a little further north, and see what I could find of the Monson Railroad, or the 'Two by Six' as it was known - two feet wide, and six miles long. It was the only one of the two footers to last into the 1940s, and it's raison d'etre for the entire history of the line, was to haul high quality slate from the many quarries on line, down to the the interchange with the 'broad gauge' (standard 4' 8.5" gauge in reality) Bangor and Aroostook at Monson Junction.

Monson depot [2] was easy enough to find, thanks again to Moody, and it is in pretty good shape. I was lucky enough to meet the owner of the property, who was was helping his long suffering wife pull weeds from the slate ballast on the wee bit of line they have adjacent to the depot. Once again, I received a guided tour, and a history lesson. Its neat to see these preservation activities underway, and in particular when it is the work of just a small number of folk with a personal interest in helping save part of their history. It kind of makes me think the human race aint too bad sometimes.

I wish I could remember the gentleman's name, as he was very friendly, and showed me where to find other signs of past activity, including a couple of the quarries, and spots where one can still see the old ROW. I even filched a genuine piece of slate ballast from up the line, as a souvenir















Monson Depot - my northern-most stop!

After leaving the depot, I spent a pleasant hour or so stooging around the quarries (amazing the places rental cars will go without complaint :-), and then headed off in search of the elusive Monson Junction, and the BAR interchange.

One of the old slate quarries serviced by the MRR, long since flooded

Monson Junction was always going to be a challenge to find. I thought I had located it on a 21st century map, extrapolating from period documents, but it is in the middle of nowhere today, with little to refer it to the present day topology. After my GPS optimistically attempted to send me down a 'road' which was actually part of the old right-of-way, and is now a snowmobile trail at best, I finally got lucky when I spotted a minor, minor side road, which the GPS map was silent on, name of Monson Junction Lane. Luckily there was nobody behind me, and after the smell of burnt rubber had dissipated, I nosed my way into the bushes, and voila! Confusion! Well, this must be the right place - that there building looks like an old depot, but it seems to be facing 90 degrees from what I expected. Oh well, snap a few photos, water the ballast, and hope I've got it right!

Monson Junction Station??? Note the flashing on the chimney - the whole building has settled a foot or so, as the foundations have disintegrated over the years.

I need to jump ahead a few days here, as my mystery did get solved, and I WAS in the right place. See the photo below, of part of one of the (prototypically accurate) layouts on display at the convention. The Station IS oriented at right angles to the BAR tracks, not parallel to, as one might expect.

Crap photo (I need a new camera), but it shows the station at right angles to the standard gauge BAR tracks. My 'real' photo was taken from just beyond where the end of the brown boxcar is located top right of the model photo.

By this time, my tummy was rumbling, so it was time to head off towards Kingfield in Sandy River country, with the hope of a good feed somewhere along the way.

Time for a map, eh?

Kingfield was an easy hour and a half drive from Monson country through very picturesque countryside, and was punctuated by lunch at the 'Antlers Inn' at a tiny village called Bingham. The food was nice, but the Inn should have been 'Antler' without the 'S', as the life-size Moose model replica outside was missing one of his. Looked most odd with one antler, and one piece of rebar, where the missing one had been :-). But hey, I finally saw a moose - well, almost.

And so, onward to Kingfield [4], and the Herbert Grand Hotel. Kingfield was an important town on the Franklin and Megantic RR, which was merged into the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes RR with the other five Franklin County lines in 1908. The Herbert likewise played a significant role in the history of the town, so it was quite a thrill to be able to spend a couple of nights there. Do check out their website - I didn't get any decent shots of the hotel myself, and it's worth looking up the Grand Old Lady's skirts, so to speak.

After checking in, I just had time for a nana-nap before dinner - all this touristy business is hard work - then it was across the road for yet another nice dinner at a local restaurant. I think I might be putting on an extra kilo or two - no harm there.

Another early night was on order, in preparation for the legendary 'Gary Kohler 5 Star Whistle Stop Bus Tour of the SR and RL' on the morrow!

P.S. Why the h%$$ won't this blog let me use ampersands?