Maine Two Footers in Wales

In the 1870's Boston businessman George Mansfield visited the Ffestiniog Railway, a Welsh slate-hauler. Mansfield brought the two-foot gauge concept to North America, using it in the construction of his short-lived Billerica & Bedford RR. The Billerica & Bedford, in turn, served as an inspiration for Maine's more extensive lilliputian lines.

So it's fascinating that those Maine two-footers are serving as the inspiration for reproductions being built back in Wales. The Ffestiniog shops that Mansfield visited over 140 years ago recently completed the magnificent "Carrabasset", based on Sandy River & Rangely Lakes parlor car plans. In South Wales, the Brecon Mountain Railway has a caboose built from plans for a 1903 Sandy River car. That railway's shop force is well along in reproducing fabled Sandy River Baldwin 2-6-2 No. 24, and if that isn't enough, the Brecon Mountain is also building a replica of Sandy River 2-4-4 No. 10.

Now if we could just get the Welsh interested in the Rio Grande Southern...