(Moody Photo)
The new station at Edaville is swarming with expectant people; No. 7 puffs across No. 2 Bog to disgorge her crowd and take a new load on. Often 600 automobiles are parked here at one time.
Yes, these little pigs did a lot of work up there in northern Maine. You should have seen them settle down to dragging a train of slate up the hill. That Monson road always used link-and-pin couplers, too; never changed over to automatic. I don’t know how they sidestepped the Government laws, but they did. Common carrier, at that. Link-and-pin couplers, stub switches, and hand brakes; just about as modern as a ramrod rifle. Far as I know it was the last road left that hadn’t turned the century.
Here’s that switch again: he’s throwing it for the loop. In a minute we’ll be backing up through the woods and into the station. Two tracks there; we’ll clear the passenger.
Quite a trip, wasn’t it? Have a good time? Everyone does; even old timers who’ve railroaded for years. Mr. Atwood’s Edaville Railroad’s got something they never saw before!
We’re back. See the crowd on the platform! Soon’s the train is unloaded there’s a fresh batch to take out. It’s like that all the time now. Lots of folks keep getting back on again, riding all day. Mr. Atwood doesn’t mind as long as there’s room for the new-comers. Wouldn’t some big railroads enjoy a passenger trade like this? It sure costs plenty for the Atwoods to give everyone these rides, but they’re like that: never satisfied unless they’re doing things to make other people happy—kind of sharing their good fortune with the world at large, you might say. It’s not lost, though: all adds up to good cranberry advertising, and cranberries is what makes Edaville the top-pucker plantation in the world, and this manikin railroad a lucky survivor of a less lucky kind of railroad design. Let’s go into the station.
Why! Good afternoon, Mrs. Atwood; where’s the boss—Oh; I see him.
(Atwood Photo)