Calamity number one came in 1929. The smallest of the lot—baby of the family, so to speak—took the colic and pegged out. The five mile Kennebec Central.
The K. C., built in the early 90’s, was used chiefly to haul things from Kennebec steamers at Gardiner to the Soldiers’ Home at Togus, coal being the biggest item. A competing trolley line from Augusta hadn’t helped their lucrative passenger business and when the benevolent Government awarded the coal haul to some trucks it didn’t leave the Kennebec Central much to live for. So, she went in her sleep. Second of the two-footers to go. The old B. & B. was first.
(Moody Photo)
What would Plymouth County think of snow like this? At Monson Junction, however, 5-feet deep is an open winter. Little Monson engines could buck the drifts as well as their B. & A. cousins, too!
While I think of it: someone was asking about the little engine over to Putnam, Connecticut. William Monypeny up to Cambridge owns it; bought her from the W. W. & F. which had recently got it from the defunct Kennebec Central. His mile of twenty-five pound rail also came up from the K. C. (No: you can’t buy it. He wants it as much as you do!)
That was the push-off.
Four years later—at 7:23 in the morning of June 15, to keep these dates straight—the forty-four mile Wiscasset road bit the dust.
In a way the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway was the first two-footer. It was chartered 'way back in 1854. Actually, though, the narrow width wasn’t decided upon until just before construction began, in 1894.
