Building South Towards Wiscasset

[Dwight Winkley]

The ROW flooding south of Cross Road may be a thing of the past. The Town of Alna has replaced the one damaged colvert with three new bigger ones.

[Bill Fortier]

One possible way to call attention to the path of the railroad, particularly in locations visible from public ways, would be to clear the RoW and emphasize its location with low- or no-maintenance materials. When the MBTA restored service to the Old Colony territory in Massachusetts new stations were built where old stations had been destroyed. At one location—Whitman—the ruined facilities of a branch line to East Bridgewater lay hidden by years of natural growth and neglect. Someone (the town, the T; don't ask me who) uncovered the remains of the enginehouse, turntable and water tower and marked out the features using different colored gravel. The resulting display is quite interesting and seems to require minimal upkeep.

[Mike Fox]

I don't know how much less upkeep it could be getting. South toward the pond is mowable by riding lawnmower for quite a stretch.

[Jock Ellis]

What about contacting Maine's Department of Natural Resources (Georgia's term) and finding out about a federal Land and Water Conservation Fund (LWCF) grant to make the ROW from the southern end of track into a hiking trail in sort of a Rails to Trails program. Then you might have some track near 218 to take hikers to the trail via doodlebug. It would mean you would either have to leave that ROW as a trail or build track beside it after requesting permission from the US Dept. of Agriculture through the MDNR.
The LWCF was the only program actually talked about by Bush #43 in his first acceptance speech. He got the program funded again after many years of neglect under the other party. I was working in the park funding unit of the GDNR at the time and we got to fund a lot of project with Georgia's share. You would need to work with the county or city (or both) recreation departments to become their project but it could mean a lot of money. The Abington Branch of the N&W RR in Virginia now is filled with hikers who spend money there. Wiscasset might want to boost tourism through this.