W.W.&F. Discussion Forum
Worldwide Narrow Gauges => Massachusetts' Two Footers => Topic started by: Steve Klare on January 13, 2026, 02:29:41 PM
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I'm a Maine Narrow Gauge Fan, and I'm also a film fan.
The "Film Fan" part of it is actually because of the Two Footers. When I was in high school, Sunday River Productions had ads in railfans' magazines for Super-8 prints of railroad films. I was already big into the Two Footers at the time, so when I saw titles like "Two Foot Gauge in Maine" and "The Bridgton and Harrison", I scraped together whatever money a high school kid could and bought some prints.
I also got a movie camera and started making films of my own. In 1982 a couple of friends and I went to Railfan's day at Edaville, and I shot a film that day. We rode the Model T track car and paid extra to ride in the cab of B&SR #8. I also shot some films at the SR&RL museum: one color and one black and white.
It was great fun at the time, but certain...distractions got in my way: college, dating, career, marriage, homeownership!
About the turn of this century, I went on the internet and tried to find out when 8mm film died out and in as a surprise result went into it deeper than ever! I got sound, got several cameras, got a bunch of projectors, and built myself a little home theater including video projection and a sound system that can rattle my wife's china-closet and scare the cats!
I also made some more films including a vintage style WW&F film around 2002. (My first visit!)
It's a great hobby: all sorts of technical challenges restoring and maintaining old equipment and frankly with eBay out there it's almost TOO easy to find films. I get together with a bunch of other film collectors at least twice a year and we have these great weekends showing films. (The crowd there has come to expect at least one railroad film from me!)
What brings us here today is a couple of weeks ago, I was on e-Bay looking for film prints and struck just a little bit of 2-Foot Gold! There was a reel of 16mm home movies containing some time at Edaville, and I just had to have it. I've watched it a few times now and it's like a window two-thirds of a century back!
Whoever filmed it had a passion for boats and trains. It starts out showing the departure of the Nantucket ferry, and it ends on the St. Lawrence in Montreal.
What matters especially here is the middle part: a loop around Edaville in 1959. That year is special because that is the date that Linwood Moody published The Maine Two Footers. Edaville on this film really resembles the black and white present-day pictures in Mr. Moody's great book.
We see Monson #4 leading coaches lettered "Bridgton and Saco River" and "Wiscasset and Quebec" (#3), and "Phillips and Rangeley" and then about three excursion cars and an SR&RL long caboose. This caboose is special to me: when I was a young kid, the same week Apollo 11 landed on the moon, my family went to Massachusetts to visit relatives in New Bedford, and we all went up to South Carver and rode in that caboose. I didn't figure out exactly what that meant for maybe another 10 years! Dad sad it was "narrow gauge", (-whatever that meant to a second-grader...). In my early teens I thought maybe "3 foot", but a few years later I knew better.
On screen, it's a beautiful, bright day with blue skies. #4 is in spotless condition, with a silver smokebox and diamond stack. Once aboard the train, the whole crowd has opted for the excursion cars, so the coaches are empty. The cameraman is standing in one of them with the train in motion and we can see the coach in front bending around the curves through the open platform doors. The scenery is sweeping past the windows. The camera is also out on the open cars for a while, and I would pick the landscapes out as the old Edaville anytime. What's interesting is the direction around the loop. I've been to Edaville maybe five times over the years, and the trains always ran counter-clockwise around the loop (Cranberry Junction Station on the fireman's side). In this film, the station looks like it's on the engineer's side (-clockwise around the loop).
The film is Kodachrome, perfect color and great condition. If I didn't know any better, you could fool me that it was shot last summer. What the photographer never meant this to be was a spectacular show of 1950s American cars in beautiful (-well: "new") shape. (Despite all that, it very much succeeds!)
16mm itself is kind of surprising: back in the day that would have been a premium format for home movies, but it looks like our filmmaker was pretty serious about it and at least this time not gone Standard-8mm. It is nicely filmed: maybe an amateur, but if so a pretty skilled one.
It's kind of sad: there is no context here. I have no idea who shot it, or if any of the people on film are special to whoever has the camera. There is some scribble on the film can about the names of a couple of ships and (of course) Edaville #4. There was a bulk grain carrier on the St. Lawrence that was only 4 years old at the time of filming that was scrapped in India about 4 years ago (-so Google says...). I bet when whoever made this film was standing next to their projector decades ago, there was a spoken story, but that's probably gone now. Whoever's memories these were, they are now mine to preserve.
-maybe in a small way, I'm now a Historian!
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Steve,
Great post! Thoroughly enjoyed reading of your film interest. When Mr. Atwood began running trains out from the cranberry screen house in 1945, the operation was out to end of track and back, on what became known as the old main line. Operation was clockwise. At some point in time, trains began to operate counter clockwise as you have said. This wasn't always the case however. It would be possible to examine old photos of Edaville trains and fix the direction of travel by any prints that were dated by the photographers. This is something I endeavor to do one day from my own collection of Edaville photos.
I'm glad that Edaville film went to a good home!
Bruce
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Steve,
A year ago, a fellow member of the W W. & F. Ry. Museum sent me the following 4 films which are all Kodak Positive Safety Film, 100' x 16mm
The original Kodak yellow and green cardboard boxes are labeled in pencil.
The contents are indicated to be:
"Steam & Zephyr, steam stock (except B & H)"
"Steam Engine w/snow plow B & H #1"
"Portland & Lewiston street car"
"NYC w/streetcar & elevated train"
I've done nothing with these and would like to move them along. You may have these free of cost if you would agree to share with the W.W. & F. Ry. Museum archives department.
If you would like, please e-mail.me your mailing address.
wilsonwaterford57@gmail.com
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I would be very interested in seeing the Portland/Lewiston street car film. I'm sure that the trolley museum in Kennebunk would be interested as well. They are restoring the only surviving car from that line, The Narcissus. I live on the Intervale in New Gloucester and have a great interest in the history of it.
Brian W.
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I am agreeable to doing this (-and grateful...), and I would be willing to share the Edaville footage too.
I'd imagine this sharing would involve a transfer to digital format: not everybody has a working Kodak Pageant like I do! (-built for use in schools: simple and rugged like an Army Jeep! It will outlast us all!)
The next night I watched the Super-8 "Two Foot Gauge in Maine" and "Bridgton and Harrison". The B&H film is actually a great film for New Years Day since it begins with a ride up the line in their Chevrolet railbus on January 1st, 1937. I watched it January 1st, 2017 and saw backwards exactly 80 years.
This film has footage shot in the cab of #8 in the late 1930s. When I was at Edaville on railfan's day, I bought the extra ticket (-maybe the best 5 bucks I've ever spent!) and I rode on the fireman's side of #8 in that exact spot. I happened to have my Super-8 camera and a bunch of film cartridges. I did my best to duplicate the Albert G. Hale footage in the original film. I still have this film and watched it last summer. When I shot it, I was a college kid. Now I'm not very far from retirement.
I did this wedged between the firebox side and the cab wall. This should have been kind of sweaty on a June day, but it had been raining that entire day and it was cold and damp. I was never more comfortable that whole day than during that 5.5 miles. THIS was worth 5 bucks all by itself!
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Hello Brian,
I have written down your interest in the Portland and Lewiston interurban film. I am also interested in seeing this film and have enjoyed 20 years of travel on Maine Route 100 from Auburn down to Portland and observing sections of the old grade in all seasons.
A member of the W.W. & F. Ry. Museum is a Director of the Shelburne Falls (Massachusetts) trolley museum. He sold me on a membership a few years ago, by providing a copy of that groups excellent newsletter.
At this moment, I am working with Steve to determine how we will proceed with these films.
When a course of action is determined, I will remember your request.
Bruce
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BTW...anyone interested in Maine and New England trolleys, do a search of the author O.R. Cummings and you'll be able to find a list of his numerous publications. Many of these are listed on eBay.
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I do have a copy of O. R. Cummings book "Maine's Fast Electric Railroad" the Portland - Lewiston Interurban. It is a great book.
I also have a bound copy of "Transportation" Volume 10 dated May 1956. It was published by the Connecticut Valley Chapter of the National Railway Historical Society. It is a 28 page history of the interurban by O. R. Cummings.
Included is a full size "O" gauge drawing of the car Arbutus plus two time tables. One effective July 21, 1921 and the other effective Sept. 30, 1928.
Both are very informative with lots of pictures.
Brian W.
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Brian, great that you already know of Mr. Cummings. I had some of his publications, but moved them along a few years ago. Now I will look for his titles in the book sale at the museums' 2026 Annual Picnic. There were some I'm the 2025 picnic book sale, but Linda (W.W. & F. Ry. Museum Archivist) grabbed them for the archives library.
On the subject of the films, the camera work is by E.O. Clark. I suggested to Steve that possibly there could be a relation there with the Clark family of Clark's Trading Post in Lincoln, N.H. Mr. Clark was friends with Nelson Blount and likely the two men were competitors at many railroad equipment auctions back in the 1950's.
Steve also advised me to "give a sniff" to that old film. Often due to improper storage and the tight fitting metal containers, the film decomposes with a wretched smell. This film seems o.k. in that regard.
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Steve and Brian have both been very helpful with my questions and in offering suggestions. It will be a project of mine to bring these films to a relatively local camera shop for evaluation. The shop is about an hour from me, so in the big scheme of things, that makes it local enough. I have no idea when I will get over there, but will post here with results.