Wiscasset, Waterville &

Farmington

Railway Museum SHEEPSCOT STATION, ALNA, MAINE 04535-0242

July/August 2004

On July 10", Bob Longo, Jason Lamontagne, and Rick Sisson brought Locomotive 10 to the end of the line at Alna

Center station, This test run was one of three that preceded steam-powered passenger runs later in the day.

Phoate® 2004 by Steve Hussar

Locomotive 10 Returns to Service by Jason Lamontagne

Locomotive 10 has retumed to revenue service for the WW&P Railway with a great sigh of relief from all of us. On

July 10°, a fire was lit in the belly of the locomotive for the first time in more than a year and a half. That morning provided

testing time for the locomotive, and with only minor problems,

the locomotive was gingerly set to hauling some revenue

passenger trains that afternoon. This was just in time, as July

10" was also Pleasure Island Remembrance Day. ‘Pleasure Island was an amusement park in Wakefield,

Massachusetts, which operated during the 1960's, It was home

to.a two-foot gauge railroad that hosted our locomotive 10 for

that entire decade. It included some 70 acres of attractions in

addition to the railroad. The locomotive, at the time known as

Number 5, had been bought from acompany in Louisiana ani re-gauged from 30" to 24” by the Edaville Railroad in the late

1950's, Pleasure [sland and Number 5 created some wonderful

memories in the minds of many, both children and adults. We

were very happy to be able to help with shanng those memories

and celebrating the history of that organization. Thanks very much to Bob Mclaughlin and the Friends of Pleasure Island for helping out at the Pleasure Island Remembrance Day

celebration.

Pleasure Island Remembrance Day has served as the target date to get locomotive 10 back in service for the past month, as we did not want to let those folks down. With some long hard hours by several volunteers, we were able to pull this off,

Marcel Levesque has been putting in overtime on our new

cab, with only a few finishing touches left. The cab, three

inches taller in the middle, has already been getting rave reviews from our operating crews, especially those who still have dents

Visit our web page at: hitp.iwww.wwiry.org

in their heads form the old cub. The new cab has also been made “WW&F style.” with an open gangway and no rear doorpost. This style was unique to this railroad’s Forney

locomotives, and was done so that the crew could sit without

being scrunched up next to the boiler. As always, Marcel has put a fine craftsman’s touch on the project.

Rick Sisson and T putin one very Late night - that being well

past midnight - a few weeks ago timing the valves. Like

everything, once we worked through a few bugs, the process

went easier, but the bugs chewed up several hours of time.

Gordon Cook designed and built a new spark arrestor for us; a

rather different concept that we found in the 1945 Locomotive

Cyclopedia called Locomotive Superdrajt. lt serves to separate

out and collect cinders more effectively and inhibit draft less

than other designs, It’s chief advantage, however, is that it is a unit and can be removed in five minutes, allowing for tube

cleaning in short notice if needed. This improvement is also

petting excellent reviews.

Several others have been helping with the finishing touches

also, including James Patten, Zack Wyllie, Keith and Ginny

Taylor, Leon Weeks, and many others.

Of course over the course of the year and a half long project,

there were countless people who helped make it happen, and

the project was extremely wide in scope and thorough. Before

the end of the year, we will provide an article for the newsletter

that summarizes the improvements made and gives a technical

analysis of the process, We will also include a “re-builder’s

photograph.” For now though, we have the finished, or nearly finished,

product to enjoy. There are some final details to add, the most

notable of which include some cab work, anew cast headlight,

brass side rod oil cups, and new coupler pockets with cutting

levers,

We are all extremely grateful to the membership for your

interest in this project and your patience with its length. If you

are able to, please come and visit us to see Number 10) and all

the other progress we've made in different areas. You can now

ride to Alna Center behind the power of steam!

Passengers from the Diesel-powered train in the background walked up to the Alna Center station to watch the

testing of locomotive 10. By the end of Pleasure Island Remembrance Day, newly-refurbished locomotive 10

was powering all passenger trains. Photo® 2004 by Steve Hussar

WW&E RPO Postmarks

Editor's Note: We have received an interesting letter from Bob Richardson in Bellefonte, Pennsylvania,

As June 8 passed by, | was thinking of the WW&F and

that final tip plunging into the creek so long ago.

Asa collector of Railway Post Office postmarks, I had in

1932 requested of the Railway Mail Service that they supply the Albion & Wiscasset RPO with a new postmarking device,

as the current one was wom out and mostly illegible.

The RMS checked it out and he received his new device

and put it into use on March 8, 1932 ona bunch of covers that I had sent in., addressed to myself and a number of friends

with whom I exchanged covers.

An item was sent in to Linn’s Weekly Stamp News at Columbus, Ohio, and they printed the fact that the only RPO

on a two-foot gauge railroad had a new marking, ete.

Unfortunately, most collectors @ot their covers in too late.

Have checked around my “stuff and cannot find a darn

one of those covers — over the years | gave away all of them to others, neglected to keep one for myself, so | can’t send one.

The only thing I can urge you people to add to your store would be posteards, half a dozen at first at least for starters.

Mast museums do not realize what a piece of advertising they are. [Editor's Note: See “Postcards Available” on page 6_]

Anyway, it’s great to learn the track advances, the engines

are getting restored, and attendance is increasing.

Initial Long Range Planning Surveys Received

As of July 26", over 150 cards and letters have been received in response tothe Long Range Planning Survey forms enclosed

with the May/June newsletters. Thank you very much, and “keep those cards and letters coming.”

While a more precise analysis awaits more responses and some sorting work by the committee, a few trends are already evident. We have received gratifyingly high marks for historic ambiance, member communications, quality restorations,

volunteer utilization, and goal definition and fulfillment. Areas

for improvement include parking, restrooms, signage, artifact explanation, explaining the “two-footer story,” and provisions for weekday visitors. Expansions of the mainline and additions

to the rolling stock also received frequent mention. There were also-a number of individual suggestions very worthy of additional study.

Over the next few months, members of the Long Range Planning Committee will be studying the survey results and responding to the suggestions either by individual letter or via

future issues of this newsletter,

Thank you again forthe many kind words and your time in composing your responses. Also, it is certainly not too late to send in your response if you have not already done so.

Vern Shaw heats a reinforcing strap for the cab roof, while Leon Weeks patches a hole in Number 10" tender.

Phate® 2004 by Steve Hussar

WW&F #10 as “Betsy” on the Pleasure Island Railroad

The WWE&F Ratiwav Museum recently received this letter

from David R. Barnes, who operated the locomotive we know

as #/0 when it was at Pleasure Island,

Several friends have made me aware of your activities, and

I would like to fill you in on my experiences with “Betsy,” which you know as #10), and which I knew as #5 al Edaville and

Pleasure Island. I first met her at Edaville when she arrived

from a sugar cane plantation in Louisiana. Nelson Blount, then owner of Edaville, decided to ship her to the Boston & Maine

shop in Billerica (MA) to have the heavy running gear work done to.convert her from 30-inch to 24-inch gauge. This involved the use of a wheel press to apply the old wheels to new, modified axles. In addition to the wheel work done at the B&M shop, a

lot of frame and side rod work was done at the Edaville shop.

Wie broke her in at Edaville, but discovered that the five

and a half mile runs were too much for her limited fuel and water capacity, and that those items had to be renewed too

olten. Because of this, she was removed from regular service

at Edaville. When Pleasure Island Park in Wakefield (M.A) decided to

lease a train from Edaville, the one mile ron with four cars

proved to be just right fora day's operation of #5 on one load of coal. The lease included a train crew, so Edaville assigned a

crew that included Gordon Fay as conductor, Dave Barnes as engineer, and George Bartholomew as fireman. Gordon Fay was single, as we all were then, and his future wife Sue was selling clam chowder near our station. This former BAM station

came from Greenwood MA and had gingerbread decor on its root,

The station was atop a M-foor hill, and the track left the

station counterclockwise on the loop, and went over a timber

trestle, A string of donkeys passed beneath this trestle for the

Donkey Ride trail, We had to be careful not to stampede them when our train rumbled over the bridge,

One day, Gordon Fay on his lunch break hid in some bushes near our water standpipe with its fifteen feet of fire hose. He

suddenly turned it on as our train rolled to a stop in the station and completely soaked George and myself,

Not all surprises were so harmless, however. Number 5 had ample powerto whisk her four-car train over the mile of swamp,

through the fuel siding switch, and up the steep grade into the

station at poodly pace, Nearby, a two-foot gauge pump car

was chained to the sidetrack. Once, we were making our usual first run of the day, and as we rounded the left hand curve

approaching the siding switch, | heard George yell and dive

out of the cab. I hit the brakes and the reverse lever, but it was

too late for me to jump. My first thought was that the switch was set wrong, but to my horror, I soon spotted the pump car derailed in the switch. Its locked chain had been cut. The train

had barely slowed from its dash for the steep hill when there was a terrible crash, Wheels, gears, and parts lew everywhere, and I just held my breath and hung onto my reversed Johnson bar and throttle. The pump car was wrecked, but the only damage to the locomotive was a bent pilot and scratched cylinder heads. We were able to continue our day's operations

once we found that George was only scratched by brush, and after we had reported the accident to the Edaville manager. He told us to save every part of the handcar for Peter Correa, our

mechanic, Pete welded and reassembled the smashed pump

car so Well that you would never know it had an accident, and itsurvives to this day atthe Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and Museum in Portland. We never did catch the vandals, and the

pump car was not returned to Pleasure Island. Por the weekend crew, | recommended a good steam man

named Nagel Stores, or “Storey” as he was nicknamed, to

fireman or engineer. I had first met Nagel when I was about

seven in my hometown of Reading (MA). I used to visit the

Reading B&M roundhouse with my dad. On weekends, around six-4t-6-2 BAM 3600-senes commuter service steam locomotives

were kept in the old brick building with their boilers full of water and fires banked. Nagel was responsible for watching

over them as hostler and petting them serviced for their Monday

morning runs to Boston from the Reading Highlands yard. T felt that Nagel’s many years working with B&M steam

locomotives would qualify him to fire up and work with our #5

at Pleasure Island. This proved to be the case, as Storey did

well. | was seldom there on a weekend and did not get to know other crewmen well, except for Linton Brooks and the

Harringtons. Nelson Blount got an OR to build a storage/display yard

near the Pleasure Island Railroad. The B&M’s Wakefield to

Salem branch passed by this area. and a Pleasure Island Park

side track allowed Blount to ship his growing standard gauge

collection of locomotives to the park for display and cosmetic restoration, One day in about 1959, a BAM F unit took the

entre collection toa B&M yard in North Walpole (NH) near a

roundhouse Blount leased from the BAM. George and | were replaced at Pleasure Island, and we hired out at Steamtown,

North Walpole, to run a tourist train out of Keene (NH) to a

cow pasture with a big tent in it at Gilboa. We used a 2-8-0

locomotive from the Rahway Valley Railroad in New Jersey

that our men and Dillon Bovler Works had re-tubed at the North Walpole engine house.

Betsy, your #10, continued to soldier on at Pleasure [sland

for a time until the park shut down for good, and the leased train was shipped back to Edaville: Betsy, as we fondly called her, went into a long storage period ina side room of Edaville’s

car shop. lam not familiar with how she ended up in Maine, but

I'm sure she has a good future as your #10, This locomotive

carded my B&M six-chime Nathan whistle while | ran her, and she sounded just like the B&M mainline jobs when she worked

up grade and whistled her approach to the Pleasure Island

station.

In Memory

It is with great sadness that we learn of the death of Phil

Nein. He was an active volunteer in the Museum's early

years and a raconteur of great railroad stories in later years. Our condolences go out to those he left behind.

2-Foot Musing No. 13

Back in Musing No. 55 (MayTune 2000), after describing

my first trip behind newly acquired steam locomotive Number

10, T said, “What do we do for an encore? On to Alna Center!”

Well, four years later at the Annual Meeting on May 1", I got toride a train all the way to the end of track at Alna Center, The regular train stopped short of the end of track because the last few hundred feet hadn't been ballasted, but Fred Morse was

running a work train all the way and offered me a ride. The accompanying photo shows yours truly arriving at Alna Center in style aboard flatear 118.

The purpose of the work train was to bring up material to

start work on the new Alna Center station. | even had the

honor of driving the first nail on that project. As I said last fall

when the track laying crew first reached Alna Center, this is a monumental achievement, Now we have a railroad that goes

somewhere. We can start selling round trip tickets good in

either direction. If we could get someone to open a general

store adjacent to Sheepscot Station, we might even get our

neighbors up the line to take the train to get their groceries!

Just when | think that I have got a pretty good handle on

2-foot history, somebody comes along with information that

stands me on my head, Such was the case when | opened a letter from member Bill Reidy. Ball is doing historical research

on Cape Cod railroads. In so doing, he came across several

newspaper references to the Billerica & Bedford Railroad.

These accounts referred to it as the Bedford & Billerica, but that is a common mistake even today. Anyway, it seems

that when the Cape Cod Central Railroad was extended to the outer Cape in 1865, the town of Chatham was bypassed. Over the next 13 years, plans were repeatedly made to construct a spur from Harwich on the Cape Cod Central to Chatham, but the spur did not get built. Finally, some folks in Chatham took notice of the failing Billerica & Bedford Railroad, and they floated the idea of purchasing the B&B equipment to build a 2-foot gauge line from Harwich to Chatham.

As we all know, the BAB equipment went to Farmington, Maine, instead of the Cape, but as Bill said in his letter, it would

be interesting to consider how history might have been different

had the B&B equipment ended up on Cape Cod, Tt could have

spawned a whole network of 2-footers in southeastern Massachusetts. On the other hand, within a few years it might

have been widened out to standard gauge, as most narrow

gauge lines of that era were. Incidentally, Chatham did finally get its rail connection nine years later as a standard pange branch line.

And what about the Maine 2-footers? Would they ever

have gotten off the ground if the farmers up in Franklin County had not been able to buy the railroad equipment at a fire sale price? This is certainly a subject for speculation. Do any of

you have any ideas of what might have been? by Ellis Waiker

Ellis Walker fulfills his dream of reaching Alna Center by train.

Photo by Vic Hamburger

Museum Receives an Amherst

Railway Society Grant

The WWé&F Railway Museum has received a 2004 Grant

from the Amberst Railway Society. This grant of $1000 has

been added to last year’s Amberst Grant to engure the building

of a replica of the original WW&F Head Tide water tank. The new water tank, which will be constructed across the

main line from the Sheepscot section house, will be used to water steam locomotives 9 & 10 after they have used the

(proposed) siding at Sheepseot Station to run around their

train.

Previous gifts from the Society have been the impetus to build the present Sheepscot Station replica, to build the machine

shop, to restore flatcar 118 and boxcar 309, and to build caboose

320. Alna Center Station is also being built with seed money

from the Amberst group.

Our members are encouraged to attend the giant Amberst Railway Society Train Show held each year at the Eastern States

Exposition grounds in West Springfield (MLA) in early February.

The show, covering five acres in three buildings, is attended by almost 20,000 people over a period of two days. Proceeds from this show are the source of the generous grants given to the WWeéP and other railroad museums each year.

Postcards Now Available

in the Museum Store

The Museum Store announces that our first postcards are

available for sale. The four different views arrived just in time

for summer, and have been selling briskly. All four glossy post

cars are standard postcard size (four inches by six inches) and

are in full color.

The first postcard is a portrait of WWF locomotive #4 in the Sheepscot yard. Postcard number two is a picture of WW &F

train § at Sutter’s Crossing. The train consist is locomotive 10 followed by coach 3 and caboose 320. The third postcard is a picture of WW&F locomotive 10 about to leave Sheepscot Station. Engineer Dana Deering is in the cab, and fireman Bob

Longo is about to enter the cab. Postcard number four is a

snow scene photographed at our 2002 Victorian Christmas

celebration, with locomotive 10 and coach 3 at Sutter's Crossing. In the foreground, a two-horse sleigh awaits those passengers wanting a sleigh ride through the nearby woods,

These four postcards are available by mail for $2.00. This amount includes shipping and any applicable taxes. Please

mail your orders to the WW&F Museum Store, PO Box 242, Alna, ME 04535.

eS =

Jason Lamontagne and Rick Sisson check out Locomotive 10 on the morning of July 10". Photet® 2004 by Steve Hussar

2004 Event Schedule

» Steam every weekend until the end of September, equipment permitting

- August 13 - 15: Annual Picnic (Join us as we celebrate #10’s 100th Birthday.)

» October 8 - 11: Fall Track Work Weekend (Come help build a run- around at Alna Center.)

« Late October (TBA): Halloween Trains « November 6: Albion Day (Come to Albion and help restore the

station area.) « December 18: Victorian Christmas (Free train rides and light

refreshments) The WW&E Hits the Big Time — TRAINS Magazine

While the August 2004 issue of TRAINS magazine features a cover story on Horseshoe Curve, the article likely to be of greatest interest to Museum members appears on page 80 and a portion of page 81. John Gruber’s Preservation section features an article by Justin Franz, a freshman at Cony High School in Augusta. Justin's article is entitled Maines Two-foot Empire Gains New Life, and

provides a comprehensive capsule history of the railway and the WW&F Railway Museum. The article includes two color pictures,

one of locomotive 10 hauling coach 3 and one of WWF locomotive 9 and Monson 3 with flatear 118, Atthe end of the article, there are bullet items identifying Maine’s other two-foot attractions, Boothbay Railway Village, the Sandy River & Rangley Lakes Railroad, and the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and Museum. Inclusion of all four two-foot attractions should help make Maine a “destination resort” for fans of two-foot railroading.

Many of the respondents to the Long Range Planning Committee survey suggested that the Museum needs more exposure in the

national press, and this article should bea substantial step. However, while the Museum does advertise in the back section of TRAINS, the article came as a complete (and pleasant) surprise.

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John Bradbury looks on while Pred Morse and Gary Recave shingle the Alna Center Station rool.

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