The Franklin, Somerset & Kennebec Railway (FS&K)

[Glenn Byron]

Update Again. I've assembled a FS&K folder-three ring binder and keep adding pages as I visit UMF Library.  Can't seem to get much done during the summer season, but have managed to get thru 1897 and up to 3/31/1898.  The railbed is all established from Farmington to New Sharon.  During the winter of 1897-98 the granite was cut mostly from Cape Cod Hill in New Sharon and moved to the various trestle locations including the one we still see over Muddy Brook beside Route 2 in New Sharon.  A Farmington Falls local character has told me he will take me to another trestle location along the route.  Just a few sample postings:  Farmington Chronicle, 3/17/1898, Farmington News-"At the office of the FS&KRR in this village we took notice of a sample of the steel rails to be used on the line.  They are extra heavy for a narrow guage and every joint is fastened with six bolts, making the track very firm and smooth running."  A contract for furnishing railroad ties was signed and work delivering those ties along the railbed is progressing according to the Chronicle 3/31/1898.  Also a 2/24/1898 report noted: " A few days ago from ten to fifteen large teams were employed hauling granite from the Chesterville and Cape Cod quarries and distributing it all along the lines from Farmington to New Sharon for culverts and bridges.  The great trestle which is to cross Central Bridge and Main Streets (near Little Blue school grounds), to be 1000 feet long has all been sawed out and framed this winter at Farmingon Falls. Before spring opens all the trestles will have been framed and be ready to set up, and as the snow disappears the new railroad will rapidly develop."  Enthusiasm is rampant in the area during the spring of 1898 and lots of money is being spent. Exactly whose money is flying around is not clearly stated but I have not seen any ad selling shares as yet.  Farmington voted some money, but stipulated it be paid when the first train ran on a schedule. I have discovered facts previously unpublished, at least in any sources I've seen, which I'll not include here.  I'm still trying to get interested partners going on this project and hope someday a booklet will tell the real story of the FS&K.  Probably I'm in the same boat Leonard Atwood was in 110 years ago.

[John McNamara]

Glenn,
I recently started using a computer program called "Dragon Naturally Speaking 10.0". I bought it from Amazon.com for about $55. It is a text to speech program where you just sit and speak into a microphone and the text appears on the screen. It seems to work very well. I was wondering whether something like this might be of use to you in compiling your information about the Franklin, Somerset, and Kennebec. By the way, this posting was generated using the program; I never touched the keyboard except to hit the reply button, the preview button,and the post button.
John

[Glenn Byron]

Hi John,  Thanks for the info.  Sounds pretty far out for a computer illerate senior, but would be a real advancement to the Columbus method of typing.  This business of an old car guy doing railroad duty is very far fetched, but so far the volunteer engineers are way back in the caboose playin' cards.  To have a novice's hand on the throttle following a gas lantern is cause for alarm down the track.  I'm from the other team, a volunteer of the Stanley Museum in Kingfield, Maine.  We are the competition, studying twin brothers FE & FO Stanley as they try to downsize steam power for use off the rails in 1897-98.  In fact we have this great story of a race from Farmington to Kingfield between a SR&RL RR train and a Stanley Steamer.  For details just email our historian, Jim Merrick,  Jimmerrick@stanleymuseum.org  .  The fate of railroad development was already in the cards by 1897-98, but history takes a while.  The $$$$ freight was slipping away early in the twentieth century and the way of life changed rapidly.  Businesses no longer inventoried months in advance, and found truck deliveries could cut expenses.  Today JIT (JUST IN TIME) is a given and no one keeps product on the shelf with dust on it.  All that saves railroad in our world today is intermodal transportation of semi trailers cross country and government subsidies.   Every other aspect of railroading is a side-line.  It is interesting beyond belief to study these old newspapers with exciting news of the Klondike in Alaska, Mckinley as our president, the sinking of the Maine in Cuba, the anticipation of a new railroad connection to the outside world, right along with bankruptcy auction advertisements for the failure of the narrow gauge north of Farmington. We get to peek at history in the making, knowing the final score.  Today we've taken another step as government intervenes with subsidies in the automobile industry. Is HISTORY repeating?

[John McNamara]

Hi Glenn! While a comparison of railroad track maps today versus 80 years ago is very discouraging, I saw a chart just today showing that in terms of ton-miles, railroads in 2007 exceeded all previous years, including the years of World War II. The low point was during 1960. In fact, in terms of ton-miles, railroads exceed trucks.

A major part of today's freight traffic is the hauling of coal, particularly from the Powder River Basin in Wyoming/Montana, where the mainline is being expanded to four tracks in some places! According to wikipedia.com, "Presently more than eighty train loads of coal, which vary in size from 125 to 150 cars, are shipped from southern Powder River Basin mines each day."

As for cars and history repeating itself, I find it interesting that interest in electric cars is rising once again. Wait until you see the new Baker Electric SUV   .

Who knows, we may even see a return to steam cars, so it's good to see that the Stanley Museum is keeping track of the technology.

John

[Glenn Byron]

I saw them today!!!  Three framed Blueprints, scaled 300 feet to 1 inch, showing every Farmington landowner, about 50 of them, whose land was "Taken" for the Franklin, Somerset and Kennebec Railway right of way, dated March 1897.  These are located in the office of a prominent Farmington businessman who has given me permission to release this information.  They are in near perfect condition as he has had them framed for display.  I asked if he knew of their origin.  He carefully thought and said they were rolled and located in his father's belongings.  This fellow is from a long line of prominent Farmington heritage and the actual path of custody is probably not completely known.  What is shown give us the actual location of the rail bed from Farmington Village to Farmington Falls Village ending at the New Sharon Town Line. What a precious find!  I will be happy to work with any WW&F Members who wish to view these as long as we understand we cannot expect this generous person to drop everything without notice.  Just be reasonable.

[Glenn Byron]

Hello Again,  Yesterday three of us journeyed to Farmington and met at the Titcomb House, operated by the Farmington Historical Society.  There, we were welcomed heartily by Nancy Porter, shown the original painting of the Farmington Falls Depot of the FS&K, and allowed to photocopy any of their archives on the FS&K or Leonard Atwood.  If anyone wishes to purchase the Natalie Butler 1976 book, "Farmington Falls, Where Farmington Began 1776" which shows this painting of the Falls Station, as well as the best biography of Leonard Atwood I've seen, they have a few copies left at $15 each, a real bargain.  We then proceeded to the office mentioned above to view the three blueprints.  But something was different this time. One of the two mentioned above, who was with me, produced a FS&K Blueprint of his own which showed "Beal's Brook Crossing".  This blueprint was done late Feb. 1897 while the three others were done March, 1897, but we were all quite sure all were done by the same person.  This probably marked the first time all of these blueprints were together since the days of an FS&K Office in Farmington in the late 1890's.  What a great reunion!

[Mike Fox]

Sounds like you are having luck in your search. Keep us posted with the news.

[Glenn Byron]

HI All, Let's go back 112 years.  I'll quote The Farmington Chronicle story dated Thursday, Oct. 7, 1897:  The Chronicle Editor is being taken for a carriage ride along the newly opened route of the proposed railroad by Mr. Harry C. Russell, a clerk from the FS&K Office in Farmington. "We were driven down the river to the Falls Village.  On the way down Mr. Russell pointed out the surveyed route- which, after crossing High Street just below the fair grounds (the trains will pass under the road at this point) crosses Blount"s (now Norton's) Brook and swings around back of Herman Corbett's buildings, and continues down to the Falls- all the way being about a quarter of a mile east of the traveled county road, and in sight most of the way.  The deep gully, through which Blount's Brook runs, will be filled over a substantial stone bridge. #  Arriving at the Falls we took the road at the Union Meeting House (turn to the left) which leads now towards Charles Hovey's house: and after driving perhaps forty (rods? gb) in the field owned by Thomas Croswell.  At this point will be located the Falls passenger and freight depot; and here we found the ground broken up to be graded by the road machine.  Continuing on, after quite a curve, we drove nearly due east, and soon came upon the road machine crew, and a short distance farther was a crew scraping.  On the machine was Luther Curtis with eight powerful horses ahead of him- and they were making the dirt fly.  Still farther along was Mr. Currier, the stone-worker, preparing low places and beds of brooks (Bragdon Brook and others) for reception of granite bridges or culverts. While ahead of them all is Leonard S. Keith and crew "bushing out" the four rod strip, moving trees and bushes.  By the way,  Mr. Keith has a novel way felling large trees; he fastens a tackle-and-fall in the treetop, the other end to the trunk of a distant tree, and pulls the tree over, roots and all, after which the tree is cut up into logs or sled- lengths and carted away. ------  After crossing Bragdon Brook, on the farm now owned and occupied by John Childs, (the Hosea Leighton farm) we  could drive no farther- although the crews have removed trees, stumps and bushes clear through to Muddy Brook, on the Weeks Mills Road- so we drove along a woodroad and out into the main road by Mr. Childs' house, the main road from the Falls to New Sharon; thence home."   

[Glenn Byron]

Ok Now We'll jump ahead 112 years and 2 mos.   My guide, Birchard Cook, Mason Rd. Farmington Falls, and I started out this morning at the former site of the Falls Depot and followed the FS&K railbed easterly as best we could toward New Sharon.  We begin where the power line crosses Mason Rd. essentially in a private driveway which follows the railbed in a field.  We bypass the house to the left and get to the back line of the field where the railbed would have turned hard left as shown clearly on the Paul Mills Blueprints.  We are now following the edge of the field about parallel with Mason Rd.  Soon the trail starts veering slightly away from the field but is easily followed by observing the ditches on each side of the railbed.  A few hundred yards into the woods we encounter the first culvert with granite headers forming about  a 1 X 1 X 2 channel for a small stream which is dammed up by  beaver.  My guide says he used to catch 20" trout here before the dam about 25 years ago.  Onward we push and though unmarked, we have crossed the  New Sharon Town Line.  We emerge from hard walking and find ourselves out in the open and a long look ahead is a snowmobile trail right on the railbed with at least a mile view.  Easy walking now and a big snowmobile bridge looms ahead. A 48' flatbed trailer with wheel assemblies removed forms the crossing of Bragdon Brook.  What you see here is the new channel formed when the stream ice jammed in the 80's and cut a route to the right of the old channel leaving the backside of the granite bridge exposed .  The original stream opening is 4 foot wide, 20 feet tall, and 50 feet wide.  A beautiful sight and we can only imagine the work to build this trestle.  I picked one particular base piece of granite on the upstream side, a block 2 X 2 X 5, which figures to 3360 pounds @ 168 pounds per cubic foot, the weight for granite as listed on a Google search.  One top cover granite slab figures at 8064 pounds for a 18 inch X 8 foot X 4 foot chunk. And the upper cover figures 4703 pounds for a 18 inch X 28 inch X 8 foot block.  Now these granite pieces came from Cape Cod Hill about 2 miles away from a quarry on the Smith Farm.  We can only awe at the work this one trestle created.  Remember no usual railroad equipment was used here.  All this was done with manpower, horsepower, mulepower, block and tackle combined with brute strength.  Now the big discovery of the day!  My guide says "Look in the bottom of the stream under the granite blocks."  There is the one foot square wooden timbers sawed at Mr. Atwood's Mill in Farmington Falls in 1897 and still doing their job holding up this whole trestle after 112 years.  My guide says that was what they used to set the granite on under water.  We wondered what type of wood this would be that would last this long.  Well, now we must move on and leave this seldom seen wonder behind still easterly bound straight ahead and easy going.  Another half mile and we encounter another snowmobile bridge over a much smaller stream.  Not much of the granite cribbing is left for us to see.  Probably a 10 foot drop to the stream below but highly obscured by brush filling the gorge, this one doesn't yield any good pictures.  We proceed on a few more hundred yards straight ahead and suddenly the nice trail ends with the snowmobile trail making a hard right.  We look ahead into the heavily wooded railbed and decide two old men have had enough.  Much easier to follow the snowmobile trail and we can barely hear the traffic on busy Route 2 a half mile to our right.  We emerge into a field by a saw mill just east of the Gage Farm and still a mile out of New Sharon and the well known Muddy Brook crossing.  A cell phone call to my guide's wife and we welcome the ride into New Sharon for lunch.  We then climb the Smith Rd., a left turn off the Cape Cod Hill Rd. and meet up with 2 generations of Smith's, one Jim Smith about 80+ years old and a real treat to talk with.  He's just full of old tales and I don't begin to have the time to absorb this as I should.  He says his grandfather, another Jim Smith, died in 1892 but left behind a diary covering the years 1870 to his death.  This diary was typed by Mr. Smith's wife and is available for us to review at a later date through the New Sharon Historical Society.  We viewed one of the quarries quickly and moved back to town.  Now we find ourselves in the back of the town cemetery and find the old FS&K Railbed along the back section just above the Sandy River.  This marks the end of the line as we know it today.  The river crossing was never made.  My guide and I tried to get into to Beal's Brook crossing area west of the Farmington Transfer Station Road but were unsuccessful today.  We did find the railbed in Farmington behind the Shoe Shop which would be near the fairgrounds.  A huge fill was made here of at least 25 feet to a small stream below.  There must be a granite culvert down there somewhere. This would be the Blount's Brook crossing mentioned in the article above.  A brief tour of the University parking lot which would have been on the end of the 1000 foot trestle near Cumberland Farms Store and the end of the day.  46 pictures in my computer, some of questionable value,  but a great day reliving 112 years of history and more when we get back to that diary.  BCNU,  Glenn


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[Duncan Mackiewicz]

Glenn,
Great story.  Any chance some of those pics could be posted and shared?
Duncan

[Glenn Byron]

Yes, I have 46 pictures, some of which are useful.  I would be happy to share them, but do not know how to post pictures on this site. Email me and I can send some individually.  Glenn

[Dana Deering]

I second that, Duncan.  Great story and thanks for sharing it!  I've seen a number of old dams now breached, where you can look down into the stream and see the timbers that supported the whold structure.  I'm always amazed by that.  Not sure what they used for wood, maybe oak or chestnut before the blight.  As long as the wood stays submerged in the silt it will last pretty much indefinitely.  The Brooklyn Bridge piers were built on huge oak planked structures that were submerged in the river and sunk down to bedrock.  Maybe they used chestnut when available since chestnut wood had a reputation for standing up to exposure to moisture, so much so that it was called "coffin wood", since it provided the occupant with the driest possible ride into eternity!

[Hunt Dowse]

That's a great story and interesting to follow on the old topographic map for the area (http://docs.unh.edu/ME/farm24ne.jpg).  The map is 1924 and most of the locations mentioned are visible.  The main site for the maps is http://docs.unh.edu/nhtopos/nhtopos.htm.  It's interesting to follow the SR&RL, WW&F and others.  Prepare for hours of entertainment, uh, historical investigative work.

[Mike Fox]

Glenn, please check your messages. I have sent my contact info as I can post them here, as long as the server I use keeps running.

[Ed Lecuyer]

Actually, the better site for historic topos is:
http://historical.mytopo.com

It has a wider area of coverage
It includes additional maps not found on the UNH site
Using it (and linking to it) helps the WW&F in that it keeps me employed :-)