B&MLRR
From: "Kate & Chris" kateandchris@communitynet.org
I've just learned of the demise of the B&MLRR, with much sadness. ... We are very active in our own local historical society, civic life, and planning, and know what a blow this must have been to so many who had invested time and love into such a project. Please accept our condolescences.
By the way, that is some fabulous history you've written. I teach English and Humanities at our local community college, and am always thrilled to come upon such quality historical research combined with very strong writing skills. Your piece is a loving tribute.
Kate Wallace Johnson, Okanogan, Washington
posted from CPRR Discussion Group at 10:52 PM
3 Comments:
Thanks so very much for your thoughtful note and kind words about my little history of the B&MLRR. The complicated story of its demise (at least out of Belfast) is a long and sad one, although all of the 33 mile grade outside of the main Belfast yard still exists. Alas whether it ever operates as a railroad again, however, is still to be determined but it does not look very good right now. Unfortunately the original 1870’s “Armstrong” turntable — which was removed from the Belfast yard last June — was recently sold and moved to a railroad museum in Georgia, and the property on which the yard sat for 135 years has just been leased by the City to a boat repair and storage company from Camden.
... When I was in Belfast last summer the tracks were just being taken up in the Belfast yard and removed to the City Point Central Railroad Museum a couple of miles up the grade in City Point. (The rail removed from the yard was all branded as having been rolled in Scranton and Buffalo by the L.I.&S.Co. between 1892 and 1906!)
I invite you to see a great many more of my B&ML images which are posted on the 53 pages of B&ML photos (five per page) on the NERAIL North American Photography Archive to which I contributed something more than half of the 265 images currently in the B&ML section. (You can also view all the photos that I have posted for various railroads at and my fifteen images of the City Point Central Museum yard located just off the B&ML grade two miles East of Belfast.)
I hope that you and your family will still consider visiting Belfast again even though the B&ML is no more. It is a wonderful community (especially in the summer) and has much else to offer. I’m sure your son would enjoy it as well even without having the venerable old “Broken & Mended” (as the B&ML was long affectionately called) to ride on. (As you can see from my pictures on NERAIL, you can still visit and walk along much of the grade throughout the length of Waldo County from Belfast to Burnham.) ...
—Bruce C. Cooper
I thought you might find the following article about the possible return to
life of the B&ML just published in "The Village Soup" news website in
Belfast to be of interest. ...
—Bruce C. Cooper
Thanks ... The Village Soup article is very interesting! As historians well know, never is a long way away . . . . Perhaps there will be a future for the B&MLRR yet.
And thank you, too, for the breadth and depth of information you sent along last week. We're all still working our way through it, and awed at the detailed historical scholarship involved!
—Kate
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