Hot shot freight. Engineer Dana Deering holds the final long blast of the whistle as his hot shot freight charges through Albee's Crossing on the southbound run to Wiscasset.
In this up-close and personal look at man and machine in their element, you can perhaps begin to understand why 2-foot railroads were so popular up in Maine from the 1880s through the early 1930s. They were an inexpensive, effective and reliable means of moving people and material in some very rural countryside, where infrastructure was lacking and population was sparse. The scale of the equipment and the cost of the operation was in perfect harmony with the level of demand for transportation. Unfortunately, these operations quickly faded into oblivion when automobiles, trucks and a system of reliable roads became readily available in the 1930s.
