(Moody Photo)
A work train at Sunset Vista. The tricky caboose, built by the Maine Central many years ago, adds a realistic touch to Mr. Atwood’s pint-sized railroad.
(Moody Photo)
Passenger train in the deep cut at the Ball Field. The elegant coach “Pondicherry” brings up in the rear.
They’re going out ahead of us! See how easily little No. 3 snakes her train out of the pit. That tricky little caboose they’re hauling came from the Sandy River, like the parlor car. When the Maine Central owned the Sandy River, thirty years ago, they built a number of those cabooses in their Waterville shops. About as perfect a molecular reproduction of a wide gauge buggy as anything could be, eh? I like that cupola. It’s quite a treat to ride up there surveying Mr. Atwood’s eighteen hundred acres from such a vantage point. We’ll see the work train again at Sunset Vista. Let’s go on to the Ball Park now.
Are you especially interested in railroads? This may not mean much to you, but if a standard gauge car was built to these same proportions it would be nearly twenty feet wide and twenty-two feet high! Actually they’re only ten feet wide and around twelve or thirteen feet high. Shows you how large, in proportion, these two-footers are. An overhang on either side that’s greater than the gauge of track! Still, they don’t feel like you’re riding a tight rope, do they? Personally, I think what this country needs is more two-foot gauges!
(Moody Photo)