The Calais Branch is a mothballed railroad line in

Maine Maine ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the New England region of the United States, and the northeasternmost state in the Contiguous United States. It borders New Hampshire to the west, the Gulf of Maine to the southeast, and the Provinces and ...

that was operated by the

Maine Central Railroad Company The Maine Central Railroad was a U. S. class 1 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 when th ...

(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 French port city in the Pas-de-Calais department, of which it is a subprefecture. Calais is the largest city in Pas-de-Calais. The population of the city proper is 67,544; that of the urban area is 144,6 ...

. 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 is a Provinces and Territories of Canada, province of Canada, bordering Quebec to the north, Nova Scotia to the east, the Gulf of Saint Lawrence to the northeast, the Bay of Fundy to the southeast, and the U.S. state of Maine to ...

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

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.

Route

* Milepost 0: Bangor * Milepost 1.2: Brewer Junction with the Bucksport branch * Milepost 10.5:

Holden Holden, formerly known as General Motors-Holden, was an Australian subsidiary company of General Motors. Founded in Adelaide, it was an automobile manufacturer, importer, and exporter that sold cars under its own marque in Australia. It was ...

* 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 * Milepost 69.9: Columbia * Milepost 77.2: Jonesboro * Milepost 84.8: Whitneyville * Milepost 88.7: Machias * 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 woody plants (trees and shrubs), 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 sunli ...

* 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-2 The ALCO RS-2 is a AAR wheel arrangement#B-B, B-B diesel-electric locomotive built by the American Locomotive Company (ALCO) from 1946 to 1950. ALCO introduced the model after World War II as an improvement on the ALCO RS-1. Between 1946 and 19 ...

s, RS-3s and RS-11s 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 i ...

(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 (U.S. 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) ...

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 or railway walk is a shared-use path on a Right of way#Rail right of way, 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 rail corr ...

, 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 C ...

until being sold in 2012 to Woodland Rail; 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