Mountain Extension - Official Work Thread

[Brendan Barry]

No. 9 on the turntable.

[Brendan Barry]

Progress on the station building.

[Wayne Laepple]

Thanks for the great photos, Brendan. Much has been accomplished a a very short period of time! Well done to all who made it happen!!

[Jeff Schumaker]

The station is looking good, Brendan. Keep up the good work.

Jeff S.

[Ted Miles]

The new station is looking great! I guess the third time is a charm!

Ted Miles, Member, Built 11 contributor

[Mike Fox]

https://www.trains.com/trn/news-reviews/news-wire/maines-wiscasset-waterville-farmington-prepares-to-open-new-trackage/

[Mike Fox]

In the spirit of the Grand Opening of the Mountain Extension, I am reposting one of my favorite pictures of the ground work being done to open the extension. This was the first true big hurdle we had to tackle, and tackle it we did... Location 1. 4 foot x 45 foot steel culvert, the bottom of which was 13 feet below grade.

[ALAIN DELASSUS]

I'm a bit lost.  Was it location 1 ?

[Joe Fox]

That is correct.

[Mike Fox]

I edited my post with the details. Thank you Alain.

[Graham Buxton]

For those who would like to see more photos of that particular portion of the Mountain Extension project, here is a link to the page:
https://forum.wwfry.org/index.php/topic,898.225.html

[Bill Reidy]

The first section of the 48" steel culvert at Location 1 was set exactly five years ago today:  August 5th, 2017.  See the post:

https://forum.wwfry.org/index.php/topic,898.msg32620.html#msg32620

Hard to believe the Grand Opening is tomorrow.  All that work accomplished in the five years since.  The effort was actually completed in considerably less time, considering the extended hiatus imposed by the pandemic.

[Joe Fox]

Wow. Very interesting. All that work completed in essentially 4 years.

[Bill Reidy]

On Wednesday, a test train was run in preparation for tomorrow's grand opening.  Conductor Dan Malkowski (right) and railway superintendent Jason Lamontagne (in the cab) led a crew meeting at Sheepscot to start the day's operations.


Consist of the northbound train as seen at Sheepscot was (north to south):  WW&F locomotive No. 9; Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum's (MNG) Bridgton & Saco River locomotive No. 7, Maine Locomotive & Machine Works' (MLM) open car No. 130; WW&F flatcar No. 118 with benches installed; MNG's B&SR coach No. 16, the Mount Pleasant; MLW's Franklin and Megantic coach No. 2; W&Q coach No. 3; WW&F coach No. 8; and MNG's Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes combination car No. 14.


The train as seen at Trout Brook Station, with No. 9 on the turntable.  Jason and Dan confer on next steps.


A happy conductor looks on after B&SR No. 7 has rolled onto the the MNG's B&SR turntable.  This is the heaviest locomotive that will use the turntable tomorrow.

[James Patten]

It was a really impressively long train in-and-of itself, when it was stopped at Top of Mountain.  I was head-end brakeman for the hill, which meant I got to ride an engine on the way down and look back for signals.  I rode in 7, and was struck how for most of the trip down the hill I couldn't see the far end of the train because of the near constant curvature.