philip.marshall Wrote:
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> We have Ellis Atwood and Edaville to thank for the
> almost single-handed preservation of the majority
> of the surviving locomotives and rolling stock of
> the Maine Two-Footers. Without Edaville there
> would be very little left anywhere. At a distance
> of 70 years it's difficult to appreciate how
> unusual and eccentric a proposition it was that
> Atwood would purchase essentially the entire
> Brigdton & Saco River RR, move it to his estate in
> Massachusetts, and then supplement it with
> equipment from the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes
> and the Monson -- incredible! But in the same era
> that saw the early preservation efforts on the
> Ffestiniog and Talyllyn in the UK, this was the
> beginning of narrow gauge preservation in the US,
> and no one had tried it before and succeeded. (I
> emphasize succeeded with a tip of the hat to the
> noble but unsuccessful effort a decade earlier to
> preserve that lost beauty SR&RL engine 24.)
>
> Yes, it was a rich man's toy, but it was taken
> very seriously at the time, and as august an
> institution as the Railway & Locomotive Historical
> Society even went so far as to move its library
> and railroadiana collections to South Carver for a
> while in the late 1940s.
>
> It was only after Atwood's death that the
> commercial pressures of the operation forced
> Edaville to develop the amusement park atmosphere
> it later took on, and the equipment also suffered
> somewhat. All of those excursion cars were built
> from the remains of former B&SR freight cars, the
> B&SR baggage car was converted first to a combine
> and then to a coach, and SR&RL combine 15 became a
> coach as well. (The Maine NG Museum has since
> converted SR&RL 15 back to a combine, to their
> immense credit.) Visiting Edaville with my parents
> in the early 1980s I remember seeing a row of
> rotting B&SR boxcars in the woods that had not
> only lost their numbers but had donated their
> trucks and couplers and other hardware to keep the
> passenger fleet rolling. (All the SR&RL passenger
> cars except the Rangeley had lost their original
> trucks and rode on B&SR freight trucks -- as I
> believe they continue to do today.) Still, it was
> the historic equipment and museum displays that
> made Edaville a treasured place for me and other
> East Coast railfans. Now that the rolling stock
> has all returned home to Maine, there is nothing
> left but the amusement park. It's a sad tale.
Being from Mass with relatives in Plymouth it was a short drive to South Carver. Visited it many times. After moving to Colorado, family went back to Mass in 1980 and visited Edaville . They had a special event and ran a triple headed steam train. That was great, seeing those 3, 2ft. engines pulling a train. Ellis had a great facility.
Is the "Flying Yankee" B&M's *Prospector" still around? Used to be on display there.
Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 08/15/2015 10:56AM by HighCommander.
