Pics from 8/19/16 visit to the SR&RL with Monson no. 3

[Brendan Barry]

No. 3 crossing the bridge into Sanders Station.



No.3 and train at Sanders.









Pictures from around the roundhouse area.







































Projects in the roundhouse.











According to the sign this boiler belonged to one of the original Bedford and Billerica locomotives.



Train backing down to the roundhouse area from Sanders.

[Ira Schreiber]

Great photos. Thanks, as always.

Ira

[Philip Marshall]

Thanks, Brendan.

It's great to see No. 3 at work again, and the coaches are looking really good. I'm very impressed with their work on the end platforms of coach No. 17.

[Thor Windbergs]

Thanks for posting, you don't always hear too much about the SR&RL online, other than they sunk a butt load of money and time into restoring the Monson No.3 which is leased and not even theirs. I had never seen good pictures from a walk around the property. Shows that they have also alot of original equipment, in what looks like good condition and are doing also excellent restoration work. They seem like the shy, unsung heros in the M2F preservation scene.

The only thing that I am missing for the bigger picture is how much track have they relayed, how much futher would be possible in the next 10years or so and how much is in their dreams?

Too bad I won't make it their in Sept. to see it. Hopefully they will recover from the huge cost and effort of No.3 and continue on.
cheers
Thor

[Ed Lecuyer]

The only thing that I am missing for the bigger picture is how much track have they relayed, how much further would be possible in the next 10 years or so and how much is in their dreams?

I'm guessing their current mainline is about 1/2 a mile or so. It's easily walked, but curves quite a bit through the woods so you can't see one end from the other.

On one end is a ~300 ft bridge over the Sandy River that would need to be rebuilt, this would extend the line into downtown Philips where the station and some of the shop complex still stands. This would be easily a Million dollar project and would also involve a road crossing (which means FRA, etc.)

On the other end is a road crossing (again FRA) and then an unsupportive property owner who is not particularly interested in helping the organization.

[Mike Fox]

What is on that mine car chassis on the same track as 121?

[Brendan Barry]

Looked like a fire car.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Yes, it's a fire car.

After seeing Brendan's pictures, I went on a "spur of the moment" visit to Phillips on Sunday afternoon - I had just enough time to get from my house and make their last train of the day. Then I hung around the roundhouse talking with the crew, etc. One of the crew members pointed out that contraption as a fire car. It's pretty robust - much bigger than our fire car/sprayer.

[Phil McCall]

On one end is a ~300 ft bridge over the Sandy River that would need to be rebuilt, this would extend the line into downtown Philips where the station and some of the shop complex still stands. This would be easily a Million dollar project and would also involve a road crossing (which means FRA, etc.)

Probably not something volunteers could build a bit at a time, eh? Too bad. Military construction battalions have been known to take on projects like that as practice, as we all know, the Georgetown Loop in Colorado had a bridge much bigger built for them gratis by the Army as I recall.

[Steve Klare]

Wonderful Stuff!,

Back when I was about 20 and in college, my friend and I were going to go up to Rangeley and camp for a week and then come back to Phillips for Old Home Days on the way home. We jumped off Rt. 4 so I could show him the railroad. We were walking down the ROW when who did we meet but Mack Paige, there for pre-Old Home Days track work.

We worked with him for a while and he gave us Vacation Plan "B": stay in Phillips and help out at the SR&RL all week. So we lived in the station and somebody found us something to do many days. Both Ariel's  boiler and caboose #556 were still over behind the Historical House and we helped paint them both. #556 was fitted out to be a trailer back then, but she gut trucks a few years later.

At night, we'd go back over to the station and cook the kind of food only a college kid lives on, and take a dip in the Sandy River so we wouldn't stink!

-wasn't all glamorous: one day we helped Hugh Montgomery haul boxes of books out on the lawn of the Historical Society for a book sale. Wasn't for nothing: I still have the autographed Herbert Hoover book I found there.

I have responsibilities these days and it's tough to get up to Maine for a weekend at the railroads, but then again I have a 14 year old son and a car that can do the trip without leaving me walking on the shoulder.

-maybe it's time to live those days as much as I can again!

[Wayne Laepple]

Go for it, Steve. Break him in now before he discovers girls and cars!

[Steve Klare]

Have to see if he could cope with there being no App. for trackwork!

So there we are resident at SR&RL for a whole week and they left us the keys....

We went into the section house and found this pump handcar welded together out of maybe 1/2" plate steel! (RUGGED, it was!)

The two of us together couldn't have weighed half what this thing did, but we wrestled it out to the track.

Thing of it is there is a fine balance between torque and speed and this was more on the "torque" end of the spectrum. So we got out there and pumped furiously and got up to maybe a brisk walk. Not too long afterwards our skinny college-kid arms (wasn't on the football team...) got tired and we wrestled it back into the section house.

-but we joined up long term and eventually made friends with their rotary hand-car...

-now that's a hand car!

[Roger Cole]

The Georgetown Loop Railroad had help from a construction battalion during the erection phase, but received a $1 million grant from the Boettcher Foundation that made the reconstruction possible.

[Phil McCall]

The Georgetown Loop Railroad had help from a construction battalion during the erection phase, but received a $1 million grant from the Boettcher Foundation that made the reconstruction possible.

One Mil is not an insignificant detail, eh? It's such a pity the SR&RL is hemmed in the way it is, but I think it also shows the correctness of Harry P's decision to start ithe museum in a rural area where the museum owned several contiguous miles of ROW instead of a more populated area like Wicasset even though it meant less traffic passing by.

[Ted Miles]

folks,
        Phil is perhaps right; but a non-profit museum is there for more than one life time. I hope it out lives the land owner, which does not allow it to cross his property. So far not even a lease arrangement is being allowed. Perhaps he does not care about a little income?
      i am certainly impressed with their round house! even it it does have steel windows, it is quite a building, full of restoration projects.

Ted Miles, Maine railroad fan.