Yes, the Wiscasset Waterville & Farmington Railway ceased operation way back in 1933. Everybody knows that.
But what not everyone knows, a little bit of it survived. As a child and as an adult one man, a certain Atrium Barnabum Loghead, had fond memories of the little pike. The child loved how the engine was hardly big at all and imagined he could run it just as well as anybody. When the child became a prosperous lumberman, he used the WW&F for his business.
Sadly, that was not enough to save the railroad in it’s entirely. But Loghead, unlike others, was in a position to do something about it. On his own property, he saved 2.7 miles of the WW&F and ran it, just for fun, for the rest of his days.
One of those days in 1956 my Uncle John, an avowed enthusiast of anything mechanical, wrangled a ride on Mr. Loghead’s railroad.The steam engine was not running that day, so the road’s little diesel No. 52 did the honors. The photo was taken with my uncle’s modest Kodak camera.
It’s not a perfect image but I love it anyway.
(I hope you like my little fiction story.)