MAINE CENTRAL

This page will cover a few branches of the Maine Central.  The railroad had several lines reaching out into the Maine countryside.  Most served to gather pulpwood cars for the paper mills.

We'll begin at the very eastern most point on the railroad and the U.S., as well.  Bordering on New Brunswick, Canada is the town of Calais, ME.  Pronounced Cal-us, the railroad had a small yard and single track engine shed here.  First we will follow the Eastport local.

  Alco S-2 957 is parked in front of the small engine shed ready for the local, while pulpwood cars are being loaded.

        Rolling through the quiet Maine countryside.
Campbells             Moosehorn Wildlife Refuge area

        At Ayers Jct., the engine runs around its caboose and picks up two cars for the branch.
At this point I had a dilemma.  Should I follow the local to Eastport or return to Calais for CB-2.  In hindsight I should stayed with the local as the
Eastport branch was abandoned soon thereafter.  I chose to return to Calais.

  GP7 581 is now parked at the Calais engine house.  It was probably assign to the Woodland local, # 438.

  565 gets CB-2 ready in the small yard.  Note the snow plow in the distance.  Across the river is St. Stephen, NB.

  Passing through St. Croix Junction.  The short branch to Woodland, ME joined the main here.

  Enroute to Ayers Jct.    Swinging around the curve at Ayers Junction.

  Dennysville.  Note the small depot in the distance.            Crossing Highway 191.

  Crossing a causeway at East Machias.  A beautiful classic New England scene.

    A little further up is Machias. ( Pronounced Ma-chI-as).  The waters are estuary's off Machias Bay.

  Flying through Whitneyville.  Despite the bucolic nature of the branch, trains moved along pretty quickly.

  Cherryfield station.  I left the line here due to the late hour of the day.

If anyone has a photo of any other stations on this line they would like to contribute to my site, please contact me. Thanks.

An excellent postscript to this line thanks to Mark Jacob:

 As for what is left, Guilford still interchanges with New Brunswick Southern at Milltown, NB (the old CP interchange) and runs from there to St. Croix Jct. then up the Woodland Branch to the former GP (now Domtar) paper mill, as well as spur from Woodland Jct. to the Louisiana Pacific stud and oriented-strand board mills (also both former GP). There is also a small stretch of the main west from St. Croix Jct. used for car storage. In Calais, the few yard tracks by the roundhouse (still standing) at Salmon Falls are used, but from there east toward the Calais yard everything is ripped out. The easternmost mile or two is now the Calais Waterfront Walkway, the old station just opened as the Downeast Visitor's Center. Going west, from St. Croix Jct. the main is abandoned but in place, owned by MDOT. From Ayers Jct. to E. Machias may soon be ripped out for a rail-trail but not sure. The Eastport Branch was abandoned 1980 but track may not have been removed until 1988. At the west end of the branch, from Calais Jct. in Bangor to Brewer the line is now considered part of Guilford's Bucksport Branch, and they might still used a mile or so of Calais branch to deliver an occasional car to Shurtleff in Brewer. They are still trying to figure out what to do with the bulk of the line, whether to restore it for rail or make it a trail or just sit on it. They still periodically clear brush on the whole line and with possible exception of a few washouts caused by beaver activity the whole line is passable by a hi-rail truck.

The next branch is the Rockland branch.

  The former Rockland station was serving as the local police and municipal building during my 1978 visit.

  The MEC used the freight house for their office.    Two GP38's parked on the old turntable.

  A large cement mill is located at Thomaston, ME.

  After picking up a few large cement hoppers the train heads west toward Brunswick.

  Passing the small station at Waldoboro.  Note the swinging crossing sign.

         The highlight of the branch was Wiscasset.
The small depot     Two very old schooners were here along the tracks.

  West of Wiscasset.    Passing along a quiet meadow near Nequasset.  A few horses are hiding there.

  Passing the Bath, ME station having crossed the Kennebec River.  The Bath Iron Works is located here.

  Arriving at Brunswick.

  GP7 575 works the Brunswick yard.  Brunswick is on the lower road that ran via Augusta up to Waterville.  A branch known as the Lewiston Lower branch ran north from here to Lewiston.  It did not physically connect to the back road mainline at Lewiston.

To the Maine Central Main Page

The Maine Central did operate several other branch lines throughout the lower half of Maine, but I did not have time to cover them.  Normally, most images on the site are from my own collection.  If anyone has any images from these other branches that you would like to share ( with full credit, of course ), please feel free to e-mail me.  Images should be about 800x600 and 100K or less.  I can edit any size image if necessary.