Appendix
You’d think I’d written a five-foot shelf of books instead of a small travel-guide pamphlet, if Forewords, Introductions, and Appendixes are any criteria. This is how it seems to stew out though, so it’s how you’ll have to take it. Keep cool!
Lots of you won’t be interested in this Appendix. It’s designed for the fellers who’re more or less railroad minded and thirst for technical details. It’s a brief critique about the gears and rods that made the wheels go round, during those hectic, vortical years. A cursory account of engines and cars and mileage that made up the Edaville’s immediate predecessors.
Here again we’ll have to condense the facts in favor of space. To include a really comprehensiveexposeof these historical lines—locomotive rosters and dimensions, car measurements and classifications, capitalizations, earnings and expenses, and blow-by-blow reports of the septuagenary rise and fall, as well as scale-drawings for model fans—would be a book in itself, and a family-Bible size at that. No one but the most serious students of railroad lore would read beyond the title page. Let’s try to jam a lot into a few pages here.
Just when the Edaville was conceived is a risky guess. Maybe in 1941 when the moribund B. & S. R. prodded Mr. Atwood’s imagination. Maybe forty years ago when, as a lanky young feller, he mused on the pleasure of owning something better than rickety sections of portable track and tiny one-yard dumpcars.
He did something about it in 1941, anyway. They were busting up the Bridgton road. He bought the biggest part of it. Wars came. You couldn’t call your soul your own unless it was kept out of sight. Without an AA-12-PDQ-RSVP-1/2 priority there was no such thingas moving things by freight, and these coveted ratings weren’t being handed out to move narrow gauge railroads from Maine to South Carver. Unless they moved into the Community Scrap Drive, and I never understood how this one escaped those zealous patriots.
(Moody Photo)Important in pygmy power development were the little Moguls. The Sandy River had engines with separate tenders as well as those like Mr. Atwood’s—built all in one piece.
(Moody Photo)
Important in pygmy power development were the little Moguls. The Sandy River had engines with separate tenders as well as those like Mr. Atwood’s—built all in one piece.
Important in pygmy power development were the little Moguls. The Sandy River had engines with separate tenders as well as those like Mr. Atwood’s—built all in one piece.
It did have a tight squeak. Mr. Atwood was notified that his railroad equipment might be seized anytime for Government use and for him to leave it strictly alone. Engines and cars needed for self-defense—don’t touch!
Funny how it came out: A few weeks later he was advised he might protect his ownership by moving everything to Carver at once. Mr. Atwood tartly replied that such extravagant use of transportation facilities and scarce gasoline, when our country was fighting for its life, wasn’t becoming a patriotic gentleman. Mightn’t he wait until the wars were done? An answer sizzled back! Henceforth he might not only do as he pleased, but the government had oodles of railroadequipment they’d liketo sell him, war or no war. Would he buy?
He wouldn’t; then.
The wars petered out. We were allowed to use the gasoline again. Big trucks and little ones headed north in the fall of 1945, and rumbled back with loads of little cars. The City of New Bedford owned a private railroad that once hauled coal to their Water Works pumping station, and they agreed to sell. Two and a half miles of fifty-six pound steel. Three miles more came down from the mountain grades of Parker-Young Company’s logging road in New Hampshire. Ties from Maine and more from the New Haven. Crews assembled.
Some desultory track-laying began in 1946 but it wasn’t until late that fall that a former New Haven track man lined up his gang, and work began in earnest. In the car shops repairs were progressing, for the day when trains would begin to run.
Mr. Atwood did the engineering. He scooches to a transit as easily as Farmer Jones milks a cow. He personally supervised everything else, too; nothing was too small to escape his attention, no detail too mean for his august decision. Mostly his own crews did the work. When cranberry work could spare them they turned-to and became railroad men. Except for the track boss no former railroad men were hired, although Badger might as well have been an ex-Master Car Builder: he knew enough to be.
The locomotive crews are Mr. Atwood’s own cranberry men, instructed in their exotic duties and performing them with remarkable efficiency.
Friends, visitors, and well-wishers have joined in offering suggestions and criticisms to help the enterprise along. Mostly, though, it’s been a series of inspirations plus years of secret planning from Mr. Atwood himself.
Today the physical properties of his railroad are:
Miles of road:
(Moody Photo)This was biggest of them all, Sandy River No. 23. My pet grief is that Mr. Atwood didn’t go into the railroad business ten years sooner, and catch some of these tricky little pigs when the S. R. & R. L. went broke in 1935.
(Moody Photo)
This was biggest of them all, Sandy River No. 23. My pet grief is that Mr. Atwood didn’t go into the railroad business ten years sooner, and catch some of these tricky little pigs when the S. R. & R. L. went broke in 1935.
This was biggest of them all, Sandy River No. 23. My pet grief is that Mr. Atwood didn’t go into the railroad business ten years sooner, and catch some of these tricky little pigs when the S. R. & R. L. went broke in 1935.
(Moody Photo)Gasoline rail-buses on the Sandy River. The further one, with the trailer attached, is now on the Edaville.
(Moody Photo)
Gasoline rail-buses on the Sandy River. The further one, with the trailer attached, is now on the Edaville.
Gasoline rail-buses on the Sandy River. The further one, with the trailer attached, is now on the Edaville.
(Moody Photo)The freight train waits while pickers scoop another box of berries. I’ll bet their backs’ll ache before night!
(Moody Photo)
The freight train waits while pickers scoop another box of berries. I’ll bet their backs’ll ache before night!
The freight train waits while pickers scoop another box of berries. I’ll bet their backs’ll ache before night!
Engines:
Cars, Passenger:
Freight:
(Moody Photo)The berries go aboard. Boxcar 13 already has a load, and presently the little train will meander down to Edaville screenhouse and the graders will take over.
(Moody Photo)
The berries go aboard. Boxcar 13 already has a load, and presently the little train will meander down to Edaville screenhouse and the graders will take over.
The berries go aboard. Boxcar 13 already has a load, and presently the little train will meander down to Edaville screenhouse and the graders will take over.
(Moody Photo)Here is little engine No. 3 before she came to the Atwood family. Lots of snow in Monson, eh?
(Moody Photo)
Here is little engine No. 3 before she came to the Atwood family. Lots of snow in Monson, eh?
Here is little engine No. 3 before she came to the Atwood family. Lots of snow in Monson, eh?
(Moody Photo)Transferring sand from a “wide gauge” car to the narrow gauge, at Monson Junction years ago. See the link-and-pin coupling on the Monson flat.
(Moody Photo)
Transferring sand from a “wide gauge” car to the narrow gauge, at Monson Junction years ago. See the link-and-pin coupling on the Monson flat.
Transferring sand from a “wide gauge” car to the narrow gauge, at Monson Junction years ago. See the link-and-pin coupling on the Monson flat.
Bridgton & Saco River R. R.
Chartered in 1881, built in 1882, opened in 1883. Extended to Harrison 1898. Maine Central purchased it 1912, sold it 1927. Reorganized it as Bridgton & Harrison Ry. and new company assumed control in 1930. Harrison line abandoned 1930. Entire line abandoned 1941. Cost to build and equip approximately $200,000. Peak year of earnings 1921 when revenue was $112,000.
First train order issued on the Edaville; members of the National Railway Historical Society made this trip, August 31, 1937.
First train order issued on the Edaville; members of the National Railway Historical Society made this trip, August 31, 1937.
First train order issued on the Edaville; members of the National Railway Historical Society made this trip, August 31, 1937.
Edaville Sign
Miles of road:
Engines:
Cars:
Billerica & Bedford R. R.
Chartered in 1876; built 1877. Abandoned Jan. 1878. Sold in entirety to Sandy River R. R.
Miles, 8.6.
2 Locomotives,
Coaches, 1; Excursion, 2; Combination, 1; Box, 1; Flat, 6.
Sandy River R. R. chartered 1879, built 1879. 18 miles.
Franklin & Megantic R. R. chartered 1884, built 1884. 15 miles.
Kingfield & Dead River, chartered 1893, built 1894. 16 miles.
Phillips & Rangeley R. R., chartered 1889, built 1890-91. 29 miles.
Madrid R. R. chartered 1903, built 1903. 11 miles.
Eustis R. R. chartered 1903, built 1903. 19 miles.
The 1908 Consolidation of these roads formed the S. R. & R. L. system, and including logging branches it gave the new company approximately one hundred and twenty miles of line, of which the forty-seven mile Farmington-Rangeley road, the thirty mile Strong-Bigelow line, and the ten mile Eustis Branch had scheduled passenger trains.
The S. R. & R. L.—or just plainSandy Riveras it always stayed in the hearts of Franklin County—deserves a book in itself. Its history and pictorial display would fill a big one. But here are the scantiest of facts: With the Consolidation this new company inherited a galaxy of equipment; whether or not all these units were renumbered into the new S. R. & R. L. roster, or if some older ones were scrapped, is (and ever will be, probably) a moot subject among railroad fans. I’ve spent hours—yes, months, trying to track it down and willingly admit that I’m bewildered and as uncertain as before. I admit, too, for the benefit of serious fans who believe they’ve identified these old engines and cars, that some logical and chronological sequences look pretty convincing; and that’s all. There’s no proof, no positive evidence. I’m not extending my neck. Here’s an all-time roster of motive power as complete as I can find indisputable records to substantiate it.
Locomotives:
Nos. 1, 2, 3 and 4 are open to question. Probably F. & M. 1 and 2; S. R. 1; and P. & R. 4Bo-peepwere the culprits; but which were which no one knows.
Sandy River 1st 3 was an O-4-4T Porter, sold to the W. & Q. in 1894. No. 6 was sold to the Kennebec Central about 1922 as their No. 4, and was acquired by the W. W. & F. in 1933.
Cars: Another blank wall. The company’sschedule of property, typed in 1935 for prospective scrap buyers, says they had 73 boxcars, 58 flats, and 136 “other freight train cars”. My own observations around there would place the number of boxcars at nearly twice 73. Several official reports had given the total number of freight cars as 350 whereas thisscheduleamounts to only 267. Just another of those vicissitudes the historian must bang his head against!
As for those “other freight train cars” they were probably the swarms of flats fitted with rack sides, for hauling pulpwood. Some may have been the truant boxcars. Ho-hum.
As for passenger cars, this augustschedulesays “12 coaches, 3 combination, and 2 baggage”. The 3 combinations and 2 baggage comes out all right, but I’m nostalgicly moved to wonder where theyhid all those twelve coaches all the years I used to be over there. I was familiar with five. To be sure, there were a couple of old, abandoned coaches and one retired combination boarded up, and used as camps. But still, no twelve.
Theschedulelists six cabooses and four gasoline railcars. I’ve seen eight cabooses, and ridden in five railcars. There were five snowplows in service, and seven flangers. There were big turntables at Farmington, Strong, Phillips, Madrid Station, Rangeley, and Kingfield. Three-stall wooden enginehouses at Rangeley and at Kingfield, and another at Bigelow before that Carrabasset-Bigelow section was abandoned about twenty years ago. The big ten-stall brick house at Phillips is still there, used for a woodworking mill.
Chartered in 1882; built in 1883. 6 miles. Abandoned 1945.
Engines:
Cars: 1 Combination; 28 flat and boxcars. 1 snowplow, 1 spreader.
Chartered 1889; built 1890. 5 miles. Had no physical connection with any other railroad, as its western terminus, Randolph, is separated from the Maine Central’s “Lower Road” at Gardiner by the Kennebec River. Barges unloaded Togus coal at the railroad coal docks, on the Randolph side. The K. C. was also unique in having no ballast supply on their line. All gravel was carted in to them, the same as coal would be.
Engines:
Coaches, 2; Combinations, 2. Box, flat, and dropside gondolas, 13. Also a freakish kind of snowplow-flanger rig.
So, we’ll call this an introduction to a two-foot gauge history. Maybe our more accomplished brethren will call it less complimentary names. If the printer will correct the misspelled words, and I have any luck at South Carver next week taking pictures, maybeEdaville Railroadwon’t be so bad, after all.
(I guess this is all.)
back cover