Hello everyone, I'm Ricky from Long Island New York
I'm 17 years old and a senior in high school currently and volunteer at the Oyster Bay Railroad Museum. Check us out
http://www.obrm.org/ . We’re currently trying to restore Pennsylvania Railroad built Long Island Railroad class G5 steam locomotive #35.
I've been into trains for as long as I can remember. It all started with Thomas the Tank Engine in the early 1990s and progressed from there. My first glimpse at real steam was at the Strasburg Railroad back in 1998, and ever since then, I have been hooked.
How I became interesting in the Maine 2 foot railroads is a story in itself.
My family owns a very small house up in Wells Maine near moody beach. We come up there in the summer for a week or 2 and sometimes even in the winter and rent the house when we aren’t there. My parents as nice as they are, heard about a place called "The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad" and decided to take me there when I was about 8 or 9. I remember when I first got there, I was excited to see all of the cars and the station. When the small diesel pulled in, I was a tiny bit disappointed it wasn’t a steamer, but not for long because I did enjoy diesels too. What a scenic ride it was. I remember the engineer let me into the cab to look around. We exchanged a few words I'll never forget.
I asked him "How old is this engine?"
He replied "Brand new"
I questioned further by saying "what year was it made?"
His answer was "1949!"
It’s those kinds of things that stick out in my mind and make it a great experience. After the train ride, I don’t remember if it was the same guy or not, but someone there overheard me talking about steam engines and came up to me asking if I wanted to see the engine. I was ecstatic. He took me into a shed big enough to fir 2 locomotives. This was back in 2003 or 2004 so I don’t exactly remember what 2 they were. Either way, it was an amazing experience that always will stick out in my mind.
I've made a few more trips to the Maine narrow gauge railroad over the years as well as a other Maine narrow gauge railroads. I visited the Boothbay harbor railroad 3 years ago and attempted to visit the Wiscasset Waterville and Farmington, but it was closed.
In recent years, I've been reading up a lot on Maine narrow gauge roads, both old and new and realized how interesting the history behind it all is. I also fell in love with WW&F #10 around this time
I plan to make the trip up there as soon as I can.
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