The Calais Branch is a mothballed railroad line in

Maine Maine () is a U.S. state, state in the New England and Northeastern United States, Northeastern regions of the United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and territories of Canad ...

that was operated by the

Maine Central Railroad Company The Maine Central Railroad Company was a U. S. Class I railroad in central and southern Maine. It was chartered in 1856 and began operations in 1862. By 1884, Maine Central was the longest railroad in New England. Maine Central had expanded to ...

(MEC). The Calais Branch is long and connects

Brewer Brewing is the production of beer by steeping a starch source (commonly cereal grains, the most popular of which is barley) in water and fermenting the resulting sweet liquid with yeast. It may be done in a brewery by a commercial brewer, ...

Calais Calais ( , , traditionally , ) is a port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's prefecture is its third-largest city of Arras. The p ...

. It was constructed in 1898 and carried freight and passengers over the years. Passenger service was discontinued in 1957 and freight service was discontinued over the majority of the western end of the line in 1984. The line also includes a spur to Eastport which joins the Calais Branch at Ayers Junction.

History

The Calais Railway was chartered in 1832 as one of the first railway charters granted by the state of Maine. Construction started in 1835. The company was reorganized as the Calais Railroad in 1838 and opened a railway from

to Salmon Falls in 1839. Horses pulled cars over the railway until it was abandoned in 1841. The railway was re-activated and extended to Baring in 1852 as the Calais & Baring Railroad. Lewy's Island Railroad was chartered in 1854, and extended the railway from Baring through

New Brunswick New Brunswick (french: Nouveau-Brunswick, , locally ) is one of the thirteen Provinces and territories of Canada, provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime Canada, Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic Canad ...

Princeton Princeton University is a private research university in Princeton, New Jersey. Founded in 1746 in Elizabeth as the College of New Jersey, Princeton is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and one of the ni ...

in 1857. The railway was reorganized as the Saint Croix & Penobscot Railroad (StC&P) in 1870. The Washington County Railroad was chartered in 1893 to take control of StC&P and connect it to MEC's Bar Harbor branch at Washington Junction. The Washington County Railroad was completed in 1898, and became the Calais branch in 1911 after MEC gained controlling stock interest in 1904. The Calais Branch was the longest of three MEC Eastern Division branches converging near Bangor. Trains leaving Bangor for Calais first traveled over the Bar Harbor branch. The Calais branch was considered to include the Bar Harbor branch after passenger service to Mount Desert Ferry was discontinued in 1937, and the first from Bangor to Brewer Junction have recently been considered part of the

Bucksport branch The Bucksport Branch is a railroad line in Maine that was operated by the Maine Central Railroad. It is now part of the Pan Am Railways system. The Bucksport Branch junctions with the mainline at Bangor and continues south down the Penobscot Ri ...

Route

* Milepost 0: Bangor * Milepost 1.2: Brewer Junction with the Bucksport branch * Milepost 10.5: Holden * Milepost 17.3: Green Lake * Milepost 29.1: Ellsworth * Milepost 31.5: Washington Junction with the branch to Mount Desert Ferry * Milepost 40.8: Franklin * Milepost 55.8: Unionville * Milepost 60.3: Cherryfield * Milepost 66.1:

Harrington Harrington (or Harington) may refer to: People as a surname * Harrington (surname) People as a forename * Arthur Raikes (Arthur Edward Harington Raikes, 1867–1915), British army officer *Charles Harrington Elster, American writer *Edward Josep ...

* Milepost 69.9:

Columbia Columbia may refer to: * Columbia (personification), the historical female national personification of the United States, and a poetic name for America Places North America Natural features * Columbia Plateau, a geologic and geographic region in ...

* Milepost 77.2: Jonesboro * Milepost 84.8: Whitneyville * Milepost 88.7:

Machias Machias may refer to: Places * Machias, Maine, a New England town ** Machias (CDP), Maine, the main village within the town * Machias Bay, in Washington County, Maine * Machias River (Aroostook River tributary) in northern Maine * Machias River ...

* Milepost 110.6: Dennysville * Milepost 117.4: Ayers Junction with the Eastport branch * Milepost 130.0: Saint Croix Junction with the

branch to

Woodland A woodland () is, in the broad sense, land covered with trees, or in a narrow sense, synonymous with wood (or in the U.S., the '' plurale tantum'' woods), a low-density forest forming open habitats with plenty of sunlight and limited shade (see ...

* Milepost 133.5:

Decline

The last passenger train from Bangor to Calais operated on 25 November 1957. Diesel-era freight service often used ALCO RS-2s, RS-3s and

RS-11 The ALCO RS-11 is a class of diesel-electric locomotive rated at , that rode on two-axle trucks, having a B-B wheel arrangement. This model was built by both Alco (327 units) and Montreal Locomotive Works (99 units). Total production was 426 un ...

s between Bangor and Calais. A

GE 44-ton switcher The GE 44-ton switcher is a four-axle diesel-electric locomotive built by General Electric between 1940 and 1956. It was designed for industrial and light switching duties, often replacing steam locomotives that had previously been assigned thes ...

working out of Calais over the light rail of the Eastport branch was believed to be the last use of that model locomotive in regularly scheduled freight service on a class I railroad until the Eastport branch was abandoned in 1978. The

paper mill A paper mill is a factory devoted to making paper from vegetable fibres such as wood pulp, old rags, and other ingredients. Prior to the invention and adoption of the Fourdrinier machine and other types of paper machine that use an endless belt, ...

at Woodland provided most of the traffic in the later years of operation. The mill originated or terminated over 6,000 carloads in 1973, while cumulative pulpwood and lumber loading at Ellsworth, Franklin, Cherryfield, Columbia Falls, Whitneyville, Machias, and Dennysville contributed less half that volume.

Current

The Brewer–St. Croix Junction segment was abandoned in 1987 and later acquired by the

Maine Department of Transportation The Maine Department of Transportation, also known as MaineDOT (occasionally referred to as MDOT), is the office of state government charged with the regulation and maintenance of roads, rail, ferries, and other public transport infrastructure in ...

(MaineDOT). The Downeast Scenic Railroad leased the Brewer–Washington Junction segment in 2006 for operation as a

heritage railway A heritage railway or heritage railroad (US usage) is a railway operated as living history to re-create or preserve railway scenes of the past. Heritage railways are often old railway lines preserved in a state depicting a period (or periods) i ...

between Ellsworth and Green Lake. The Washington Junction–Ayers Junction segment was dismantled in 2011; its right of way is used for an interim

rail trail A rail trail is a shared-use path on railway right of way. Rail trails are typically constructed after a railway has been abandoned and the track has been removed, but may also share the right of way with active railways, light rail, or streetca ...

, the Down East Sunrise Trail. An isolated eastern section of the Calais Branch is in operation between St. Croix Junction and Milltown, where there is a connection with the

New Brunswick Southern Railway The New Brunswick Southern Railway Company Limited is a Canadian short line railway owned by the New Brunswick Railway Company Limited, a holding company that is part of "Irving Transportation Services", a division within the industrial conglo ...

at the Milltown Railway Bridge into Canada. At St. Croix Junction, the Woodland Spur continues northwest to

, running through

, Canada for several miles along the way. Together, these operable sections of the Calais Branch and the Woodland Spur measure in length. The Woodland Spur is the only MEC trackage that crossed into New Brunswick. The spur was owned and operated by

Pan Am Railways Pan Am Railways, Inc. (PAR) is a subsidiary of CSX Corporation that operates Class II regional railroads covering northern New England from Mattawamkeag, Maine, to Rotterdam Junction, New York. Pan Am Railways is primarily made up of former Cl ...

until being sold in 2012 to

Woodland Rail Woodland Rail, LLC is a non-carrier railroad company that owns an rail line located in the state of Maine and province of New Brunswick. It was formed in 2012 as a subsidiary company of Woodland Pulp, LLC, which owns and operates a pulp mill in ...

; Woodland Rail has now contracted operation to New Brunswick Southern Railway.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Calais Maine Central Railroad Maine logging railroads Rail infrastructure in New Brunswick Pan Am Railways Calais, Maine