ABOVE: The Bangor & Aroostook’s Northern Maine Junction facility in Hermon, Maine, is home to slumbering road power at “blue time” just after sundown in February 1994. RIGHT: A few years earlier in October 1980, one could still find unique BL2s on the ready tracks at Northern Maine Junction. After retirement, this locomotive headed to Pennsylvania’s Stour- bridge Railroad to pull seasonal excursions.
grudgingly returned to Maine to record the period of tumultuous change. Loco- motives were “traded” among the three roads as fast as they could be stenciled, branch lines were embargoed or aban- doned, men were laid off and the morale of those who remained was low. It was hard to record on film the loss of friends, freights and facilities. Early in 1994, the impending diver- sion of the Atlantic to an all-Canadian route was announced. It was time for one more bittersweet trip, to experi- ence, and pay tribute one last time. Al- though the trip was hastily arranged, I had been able to do some advance plan- ning, though the news was not good. What little was running, ran at night. I didn’t know any of the crews, thus mak- ing the opportunity of cab rides unlike- ly. Still, I felt there was a sense of ur- gency, and the trip needed to be made. Fortunately, the news of the demise of Maine railroading was premature. In a whirlwind “long weekend,” not only was I able to photograph the Atlantic one more time, I was treated to yet an- other roundtrip cab ride. This time my ride was in more modern EMD F40s, themselves quickly becoming “classic”
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locomotives. And because of bad weath- er, the normal nightly freight sched- ules were thrown off, and a dilemma was posed. There were two freight trains in Brownville Junction ready to depart at once, both in the middle of the day, both going in opposite directions. The choice was the westbound, with five MLW’s, and the chase was on! The Bangor & Aroostook rolled out the red carpet at Northern Maine Junction. Even Guilford was a pleasant surprise, offering a busy morning at Danville Junction that included vintage former Maine Central geeps and U-boats, as well as the St. Lawrence & Atlantic’s ski train, operated in cooperation with
the nearby Sunday River Ski Resort. It would be my last hurrah for Maine railroading, a time to file the slides and memories, and offer my best wishes for all involved. Shortly after that last trip, I became involved with a local railroad back home. I helped out where needed with photography, maintenance, and staffing the trains, and eventually, I worked up to engineer. Here on the Cuyahoga Valley Scenic Railroad, we like to think we have our own little “slice of heaven,” and we do, but for me, there’s even more. One of our FPA4s, formerly VIA No. 6777, is a familiar friend from those cold nights long ago back in Brownville Junction waiting on
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