(Moody Photo)
With all the decorum of her wide gauge sisters the little “Rangeley” trails the passenger train along the twisting dikes.
He died. Then a connoisseur of antiquity who just couldn’t see her sold for a hen-house or a camp, bought her. Later on Mr. Atwood got her from him. Came down here on a big trailer one twenty-below-zero morning. Imagine a parlor car breezing along the highway!
Well, looks like we’re ready to go. Let’s stay here on the rear platform. Good place to view the sights.
Starts smoothly? Sure: could be the Federal leaving Grand Central. These little trains ride all right. When track’s kept up you can’t tell ’em from standard gauge.
The enginehouse will be over there. Six stalls: four for the engines and two for some of the motor cars. Motor cars? Oh yes, there are motor cars. You’ll see some before we get back.
Look up there at the screenhouse: those big doors are the car shop tracks. Holds six or eight cars in there. These are the main yards we’re going through now; storage, mostly. See that track on the higher level over there? Goes to the screenhouse door where berries are unloaded in harvesting time. Screen and grade ’em in there. Stiff climb up that bank, too. Makes the little engines grunt.
This is quite a yard. Confusing, too, until you get it fixed in your mind. It’s like this: the track we’re on now is the original main line out of Edaville—down through these yards and out onto the bogs. Now, since the railroad was completed, it’s kind of an alternative cutoff, I’d say.
(Hosmer Photo)