The Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington RR

  "2 miles and growing" - (narrow gauge)                 by James Patten

 The Maine Two Footers lasted for about 75 years, beginning in 1870 and ending during World War II.  Five systems were born, grew up, had dreams of grandeur, settled in to business, and shut down when the automobile took their business away.  All were scrapped, although a number of pieces of equipment survived and many of these ran at the Edaville Railroad in South Carver, Mass.

One system, the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington (WW&F) Railway, was abandoned in 1933 after a wreck and scrapped in place in 1937.  Only a locomotive (#9), a passenger car (#3), a flatcar (#118), and two boxcars (#309 and 312) survived intact past the War.  It seems impossible today that there would be anything left or that there would be any interest in preserving it.

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Yet, thanks to one man, the WW&F Railway Museum is one of the largest railway museums by membership in the US.  Founded in 1989 by Harry Percival, Jr., the Museum has grown in just the past 15 years from an open field with only 100 members and a few volunteers to a nearly 2 mile mainline with an active steam program, 1000+ members, a fully equipped machine shop, and dozens of volunteers.  Thanks to the hard work of its past and current volunteers, the WW&F is a growing and vibrant community, dedicated to the presentation of turn-of-the-20th-century transportation to its visitors.

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 One of the biggest volunteer attractions is a twice-annual work weekend.  These weekends, in the spring and in the fall, are three or four days long and can attract up to 80 volunteers at a time.  The work weekends are usually dedicated to building new railroad track, but oftentimes additional work is done elsewhere on the railroad.  This year’s spring work weekend, April 28 - 30, 2006, was no exception.

Last fall’s work weekend was washed out by record rainfall, so there was some catch-up to do.  In contrast to last year, the work weekend this spring was absolutely gorgeous - blue sky and nice temperatures.  The plan was to finish what was started last year, and put new track built last year in service.

Friday the 28th was spent raising a couple of sags in the existing in-service track from when it was constructed.  One sag was just north of the railroad’s only trestle, at Humason Brook.  The other low spot was over a culvert near the Alna Center station.  By the end of the day both were eased or eliminated.

Saturday the crews moved north to the other side of Alna Center yard.  The jacking crew set out the jacks for 100 feet and brought the track up to level.  The tamping crew, working with pneumatic “jitterbug” tamping equipment, followed close behind.  A rented air compressor on a four-wheeled car provided the air.  This car was hooked to locomotive #51, a gas-mechanical Brookville locomotive.  Ballast was delivered to the worksite on a flatcar, either #118 or newly built flat #126, which had been decked over only weeks beforehand.

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The WW&F  (cont'd)

 Ballast is currently stored in the parking lot of Sheepscot Station.  Two trains were in motion at all times.  The railroad’s only operable steam locomotive, #10 (Vulcan, 1904) would deliver the stone to the yard at Alna Center, as it could deliver the stone over the mile-and-a-half line in only a few minutes.  Leaving the full flatcar on the mainline next to the station, it would switch over to the siding and hook onto the empty flatcar and return to Sheepscot.  Meanwhile the locomotive #52, a Plymouth diesel, would couple up to the full flatcar and run it north to the worksite, where dozens of people would attack the pile of stone with shovels and ballast the newly tamped track.  Once empty, #52 would take the flatcar to the siding and leave it, and the cycle would repeat.

At the north end of the Alna Center yard, the track reaches the height of land and makes a sharp drop before leveling out.  This peak was reached in mid-morning by the tamping crew, and by lunchtime they were well on their way down the hill.  At the end of the day the track had been leveled, lined, and tamped for over 600 feet.

Sunday was also productive, but thanks to dwindling (and likely tired) crews about 300 feet of track was leveled up, bringing the crews down to the bottom of the hill. At the end of day, about a thousand feet of new track was opened up for train service, although scheduled passenger train service will not bring people onto this new track.

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 Track crews were not the only crews busy that weekend.  Of course the front end loader operator was kept busy loading up the stone to the flatcars.  But there was also an assembly line in the Sheepscot yard working on window replacements for newly-acquired Coach #8, as well as painters and detailers working on the coach itself.  Additionally, a trench was dug and pipe laid down for the new water tank.

Progress at the WW&F doesn’t just happen on the big work weekends, however.  Since mid-winter, a couple of guys have been building a hand pump car, and it’s expected to be ready in a month or two.  Flatcar #126 was built in two months, using metalwork and trucks from Edaville RR open air coach #202, purchased last year.  Coach #8 was purchased as well from Edaville as well, where it was known as Coach #26.  The water tank itself will need work before being hoisted on its platform, and will hopefully be in service by mid-summer - then it will need to be enclosed, as were all of the WW&F’s tanks.  Eventually ballast will be stored at Alna Center.

Further out on the horizon is the completion of a two-foot gauge velocipede and Model-T railcar.  And, of course, the autumn track session, where it’s possible that another quarter mile of track will be built.  Locomotive #9 should begin undergoing restoration this winter, with a return to service in a couple of years.

WW&F Addendum

Josh Botting sent along these additional photographs of the "Spring Work Weekend" for supplemental, project illumination. These cover the April 28th – 30th  volunteer track work effort as described in the article above.

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For more on this narrow gauge railroad check out their own website:   www.wwfry.org

Also see "Railway Preservation News" for additional input:  www.rypn.org

Special thanks to photographers;  Mike White - Josh Botting - Bill Reidy - Joe Fox and Steve Hussar