Boothbay Railway Village (II)

…continuing with our summer time adventures in New England and our exploration of the Boothbay Railway Village.

It was time for us to take a ride around the Village’s grounds on their little narrow gauge train and matching tracks.  This was another view of the old Freeport Maine depot where we had to catch the train…

The Boothbay Railway Village operates their tourist train using both vintage and replica coaches.  I felt that our coach was an old one but I’ve been fooled before!

You can see just how narrow the tracks are in this photo as we crept along the circuitous route through the Village. 

The U.S. standard gauge for railroads is 4 feet and 8.5 inches.  However, early on Maine used 2 feet as their ‘standard’.  This was to lower the cost of railroad construction and operations.  In turn, this low cost alternative allowed the construction of railroads in areas where it wouldn’t have normally been economically feasible to use the U.S. standard gauge.

Along the way, we chugged past the museum’s workshop where the locomotives and rolling stock are maintained.

There are a number of other railway related structures at the museum.  There is a car barn, an octagonal crossing shanty (1908), 2 other crossing shanties, 4 car houses, an engine house (1899), a coal bin, a water tower, a covered railroad bridge and a crossing tower.

There is also a second historic depot that’s located opposite of the Freeport Depot on the property.  The train stops here.  This is the former depot from Thorndike Maine.  It was built in 1871 by the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad.

Another open train shed shelters a narrow gauge railway static display that includes a Baldwin Steam Locomotive that was built in 1895 for a paper mill in Maine; a boxcar built in 1894 for the Wiscasset and Quebec Railroad; a boxcar built in 1916 for the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad, and a third one built in 1912 by the Maine Central Railway that was also for the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railway. 

This narrow gauge rail car is referred to as Combination #1.  It was built by Laconia Car Company (Laconia NH) in 1885.  It served as a combined passenger and freight/mail car.  The museum’s goal is to refurbish this combo car.  They already have Combination Car #2 on display in a car barn and it’s used on special occasions.

FYI…at their peak the Maine ‘two-footers’ narrow gauge trains operated on over 200 miles of track, moving passengers and freight into and out of rural parts of the state. 

This 1880 “40 and 8” French boxcar was presented to the people of Maine in 1949, as were 49 others to every state in the Union.  These cars were originally filled with gifts and delivered to each of our US state capitals.  The 40 and 8 appellation stems from its origin during WWI with each boxcar capable of carrying either 40 men or 8 horses.   

This is the Thompkin’s Filling Station, an original small town gas station from East Boothbay.  It was donated and moved to the museum in 1970.  Note the old pot-bellied stove inside the station.

The Tide Water Oil Company (1887 – 1936) was later renamed Tidewater Oil Company and it was a major player in petroleum refining and marketing in the USA for over 80 years.  The Tydol brand name was completely discontinued in 1956. 

This is the vintage vehicle display building… I was pleasantly surprised at the variety and range of vehicles on display inside this structure.  More than 60 cars, trucks and more are on display as well as various signage, gas pumps and other transportation related items.  There was indeed a docent watching over this collection!

What follows is an arbitrary selection of vehicles we saw as we wandered through the exhibit hall…

This striking fire apparatus was the first thing we saw when we entered the Vehicle Building.  It’s an 1885 Button Steam Pumper that was manufactured by Button and Sons in New York.  It weighs over 3 tons and it originally cost $750.  This type of fire response vehicle replaced the old hand-tub pumpers and with half the manpower, it provided much better water flow for fire-fighting.   This unit is on loan from the Old Town Maine Fire Department.

This is a Tinker’s Wagon.  Tinkers were the traveling repairmen of their day.  They would travel around the countryside from farm to farm, repairing pots, pans and other household metal items.  They would carry all the materials with them they might need to effect necessary repairs…and they might just try to sell something new or newer to the homeowner. 

This ca. 1880 horse drawn sleigh served as a taxi cab in Boston Massachusetts.  It had wheels for summer service and it was switched over to runners for the winter.

These 3 vehicles are early taxis, or as they referred to them, ‘hacks’.  All of them are Fords.  The one at the left is a 1924 Model T Railroad Depot Hack that was using to take passengers to and from trains to their in-down destinations.

This is a 1949 Whizzer Bicycle Model J.  Whizzer bicycle engines were produced in the US from 1939 until 1965.  Typically, they were sold as kits to be assembled and attached to the consumer’s bicycle.  Given the size and weight of early bicycles, a motor would have nice.  My first bike was a heavy blue and white women’s Schwinn that had been my mother’s. 

Here’s a nice line up of Ford products!  The blue 4-door is from 1928 but I do kind of favor the green one…

This is a 1927 Ford Model T Milk Truck.  This particular truck was used to deliver milk in the Boothbay region until 1956.

 

1927 was the last year that Ford produced Model T Trucks.  In total, over 1,600,000 Model T trucks were manufactured by Ford.

This is an ‘andalusite blue’ 1930 Ford Model A Standard Phaeton.  Ford built 16,470 of this model in 1930.  In cold climates an aftermarket cast iron device could be purchased to place over the exhaust manifold to direct heat into the cabin of the car… (Holy carbon monoxide!)

This terrific looking car is a ‘brewster green’ 1930 Ford Model A Deluxe Roadster.  This 3 passenger auto had an electric starter and it cost $485.00 new. ($29,400 in 2016 dollars) A total of 11,318 of these roadsters were built in 1930.

This 1928 Maxim Fire Truck was the first motorized fire engine in the town of Newcastle Maine.  It helped protect the town for over 30 years before it was sold.  49 years later, the Newcastle Fire Department reacquired it for its historical value.

The Maxim brand was established in 1914 by the Fire Chief of Middleborough Massachusetts, Carlton Maxim, who thought that he could build a better fire truck.  The company survived until 1989.

What...This isn’t a Ford?!  Nope, its a 1926 Dodge 4-cylinder ¾ ton Express Truck. (Series 4 Commercial Car) This particular truck was never really used to deliver newspapers but it is used in parades and special events.  Back in the day, these trucks served as merchant delivery trucks.

Back to Ford again… This is a 1932 Ford Model BB Stake Truck.  Model B trucks were produced from 1932 through the rest of the 1930s.  The big news was the introduction of the more powerful flathead V-8 engines in 1932…providing a ‘dazzling’ 65 horse-power!

This is a ‘Nassau Crème’ colored 1950 Willys Overland Jeepster Phaeton.  This model is alleged to be the last ‘true phaeton’ manufactured by a major automaker.

The Willys-Overland Motors Company was based in Toledo Ohio.  It was in operation from 1908 – 1963, although other auto manufacturers bought the name and plans and tried to carry on with the brand name. 

Note:

·         Originally a phaeton was a style of open automobile without any fixed weather protection…basically an auto equivalent of a horse drawn phaeton carriage.  As auto designs progressed, the term “phaeton” became widely and loosely applied to any vehicle with 2 axles and a row or rows of seats across the body.  Convertibles and pillar less hardtops were actually marketed as phaetons for a time…

I love this car!  It’s a 1932 Peerless De Luxe Master 8 Cabriolet with a straight 8 cylinder engine.  It was one of the last cars built by the Peerless Motor Company, which was based in Cleveland Ohio.  The company was founded in 1902 but the Great Depression killed off the demand for luxury automobiles.

The Peerless Motor Company introduced electric starters in 1913, (much earlier than I would have imagined), and they introduced its first V8 engine in 1915. 

Yes, you are right!  This 1929 Packard 640 Limousine was not your everyman’s car.  This one has a divider glass between the front seat and the back, evidently so the owner could have some privacy from his or her chauffer.  In the 1928 – 1929 model year, Packard did pretty well.  The company sold 54,992 cars, 9,801 of them were the model 640 at an average of $3,850 each.  That compares to Chevrolet, Ford and Plymouth autos with a price of under $700 per car. 

This is another wealthy owner’s auto.  It’s a 1937 Ardsley Green Packard Rollston Phaeton 7 Passenger…and only 3 of these cars were built.  This is one of the two that still survive.  These cars are considered to be the best automobile that Packard ever built.  Keep in mind, that Packard hand built these cars…

Not only is this an upscale Cadillac, but it has some interesting history.  This 1940 Model 7533 Cadillac Limousine could seat 7 passengers.  It weighs 4,790 lbs. and it has a 141 inch wheelbase!  Cost = $3,360.  The car was originally purchased for use by Thomas Edison’s 2^nd wife and widow.

This is a 1909 Stanley Steamer Model R (Roadster) Fully steam driven, it used a gallon of water for every mile drive.  It could operate on a 50/50 mix of gasoline and kerosene.  On a good road, this 1909 automobile could reach speeds of 60 – 70 miles per hour!  

This is an example of the other types of items on display in the Vintage Vehicle Display Building.  Old gas pumps are almost an art form!  Red Crown Gas was produced by the Standard Oil Company.  The meter on this one is a far cry from the little digital readouts that we get today.

For real railroad fanatics as well as those who love dioramas, visitors to the Boothbay Railway Village shouldn’t miss the model railroad exhibit.  It’s quite large and it’s housed in a replica of the Maine Central freight station in Bowdoin Maine.  This exhibit is located adjacent to the Vintage Vehicle Display Building.

Under construction since the fall of 2006, the model railroad exhibit is a definitely a work in progress and it will take several more years to complete.  This HO scale layout depicting Maine railroading in the 1950s and 1060s is being built by volunteers.  Donations of materials, tools, reference materials and cash are always welcome.

There are displays of model rolling stock, locomotives and other items all around the walls of the model train layout.  I particularly liked this grouping of classic and vintage locomotives.

The only critters on display at the Boothbay Railroad Village are these relatively maintenance free goats.  We both like goats but since these children were feeding them, we were generally ignored.

That’s about it for the Boothbay Railroad Village.  FYI, the Railway Village Museum has been a not-for-profit operation since 1981. We enjoyed our visit and we’d recommend to others who might be looking for a low key yet interesting exploration of Maine history. 

The Museum is located at 586 Wiscasset Road (ME Hwy. 27) in Boothbay Maine.  Phone: 207-633-4727.  The Railway Village is currently closed for the season.  Admission costs in 2018 were $14.00 for adults, $12.00 for seniors 65 or older, $7.00 for children from 3 – 18 years of age and free for Active Duty Military families with ID.  For more information, go to the website at: https://railwayvillage.org/explore/model-railroad/.

Thanks for stopping by and joining us as we explored the Boothbay Railway Village.  Just click on any of the photos to enlarge them…

Take Care, Big Daddy Dave