Standard gauge steam engine

[Roger Cole]

After joining the WW&F officially (been lurking for years), I went on a reading binge through all of the back issues of your newsletter.  I remember there was a standard gauge steam engine (without cab I think) that was at Sheepscot for a while.  I don't remember reading about it's leaving, but from all the recent photos it's obviously not there anymore.  In a nutshell, what was the story with that engine and where did it end up?

[James Patten]

The engine was a Crotch Island quarry engine (Crotch Island is off of Deer Isle, Maine), and ended up at as a display at a store along I-95/Route 1 in Freeport (where the Big Indian is now).  Somehow our president at the time Joe R found out it was available, and so bought it as a display piece so that people would know that we were a railroad museum, around 1993.

Around 1998 or 99 we decided we didn't need it anymore, so we sold it to Beaver Brook in Mont Vernon, NH.  I don't know where it is today.

[Ed Lecuyer]

I don't know where it is today.

It is on display at the Silver Lake Railroad in Madison, N.H. Note that the Silver Lake Railroad has not operated publicly for a few years now, and may be shut down. They were kind of a fun little group, offering rides using modified speeders and simple rider cars.

[Philip Marshall]

I believe this is it: https://www.google.com/maps/@43.8875907,-71.1738471,3a,37.5y,332.21h,92.32t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sKqAEjOaeE4Di6-_gvc1XNA!2e0!7i13312!8i6656

This engine has somehow acquired duplicate entries on steamlocomotive.info, which disagree as to whether it's a Vulcan or a Porter:

https://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=1711

https://www.steamlocomotive.info/vlocomotive.cfm?Display=28142

I remember back in the '80s when it was displayed on Route 1, it  was painted a really garish and attention-grabbing color scheme of green and white stripes, like some kind of confectionery. My brother Steve and I nicknamed it "the peppermint Porter" (though we knew it was really a Vulcan).

[John Kokas]

Isn't Silver Lake part of the North Conway line (B&M), that they were looking to reactivate a few years back?

[Ed Lecuyer]

The Silver Lake RR is on the B&M's branch to North Conway.

The Silver Lake RR is several miles south of Conway (southern end of the Conway Scenic) and many, many miles north of Ossepee (current end of freight operations on New Hampshire Northcoast.)

There have been various proposals over the years to reactivate the dormant (but mostly in-tact) rails, but nothing has ever come of it.

[Wayne Laepple]

Unless and until there would be enough freight traffic to make such an investment worthwhile, why bother?

[Ed Lecuyer]

There have been a few decent "close" proposals. One is to extend the active railhead down from Conway into the nearby sand/gravel pit in order to receive ballast for the Conway Scenic.

The other has been to work northward from the NHN engine facility, in order to open some industrial-zoned lots to rail service. Again, only maybe a mile or so of track - but here Guliford lifted some of the rails.

The pie-in-the-sky proposals including running passenger trains up from Boston into the White Mountains. The WW&F has a far better chance of reaching Wiscasset before that ever happens.

[Dwight Winkley]

This track is in the N.H. Rail Bank.

[Dag Bonnedal]

Cute little loco!
Did anyone play around with the idea of putting the wheels inside the frame, adding a pilot and a Forney bunker/tank behind?
The result would be surprisingly close to WW&F #7. The smokebox saddle would retain the higher boiler pitch, giving it a more modern appearance. This loco would have only 7% higher tractive effort than #7.

This is not a serious proposal, just fun speculating. What you are doing with the "7-Eleven" is definitely much more serious.

Dag

[James Patten]

I think the idea was bandied about at the time of regauging it, but nothing ever came of it.