equipped with A-B-B sets of sharp pur- ple-and-yellow MLW FPA4s, pulling gleaming rebuilt Budd stainless-steel cars. There were big six-motor MLW’s on freight extras, or four and five-unit lash-ups of four-axle Alcos built by the Canadians under license from the leg- endary U.S. builder. Although I didn’t fully realize it at the time, Brownville Junction was a walk back into the railroading of a generation ago, with train orders, white and green flags indicating class, a wooden caboose in maintenance-of-way service, a “wedge” of a wooden roundhouse, and, upstairs
in the station/office building that used to house the division headquarters, a bunkhouse, unused but still intact. Some of my fondest memories of rail- roading in Maine involved the senses that film can’t capture, such as the gen- tle hissing of steam-heated trains and the acrid smell of coal smoke, probably from a neighboring home, but none-the- less reminiscent of railroading years ago. Or waiting outside of town at a rural grade crossing for the nocturnal Atlantic to arrive from the east, hearing the train before seeing it, the 251s barking crisply as the throttle is left open and air
is set on the train, air horns blare for the crossing, a shrill squeal of cast iron shoes on steel wheels giving off a fair shower of sparks, making me wince. Masterfully, the veteran engineer slows the train from 35 or 40 m.p.h. to a stop on a dime without a bump or delay. On a cold night in late fall, while en- joying a cab ride courtesy of a friendly Atlantic crew, I gazed out the engi- neer’s window as we skirted the south- ern
edge of Moosehead Lake, the
largest in the state, and one of the most remote, and I asked about the greenish, whitish streaks of light on the horizon, so bright that they reflected in the still waters of the lake. “What are all those lights? I didn’t think there was a town out here...” Casually, as if it were all just part of a regular run, the engineer replied “That? Oh, it’s just the North- ern Lights.” As a city boy from Ohio, I was
hooked! Other trips included
watching a bull moose crash through the underbrush, “pacing” the locomo-
LEFT: In January 1984, the Guilford influence is manifested in newly repainted MEC GP38 No. 251 working the yard at Waterville along- side chop-nose GP7 No. 579 still wearing MEC orange. BELOW: A year later, in Bangor, two 1952-vintage GP7s provide an interesting contrast in body styles and logo variations.
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