Radio Script #153
Little Talks On Common Talks
September 14, 1952
It is good to be back on the air again for this beginning of our fifth year of gossip about old time things and old time customs. Since our last broadcast of the 1951-52 season, Waterville has celebrated her 150th anniversary. Those festal days are over and we are settled down to another half century of community development.
Some of us get a lot of enjoyment talking with folks who participated in Waterville’s one hundredth anniversary in 1902. I wonder if folks of 2002 will get the same enjoyment talking with the old men and women of that day who saw Waterville’s 150th In 1952. Consider some of those kids who acted in the amusing schoolroom scene depicting Crosby Hind’s school in the 1820’s. Perhaps, when Waterville celebrates its two hundredth birthday, and many of us are no longer around, one of those kids may probably tell his grandson, “Yes, Indeed, I was an actor in that pageant on Mayflower Hill 50 years ago”.
The Waterville Sesquicentennial gave many instances of the kind of cooperation that is the key to all American progress. I had the pleasure of witnessing many rehearsals for the pageant — rehearsals held in the worst heat of the summer in the stifling auditorium of the Senior High School. There I saw 400 of our citizens give up night after night in tiresome, repetitive practice for the big pageant. Then I saw them, with equal devotion and loyalty to their city, give up every night for a whole week for the six performances.
When you add to the devoti on of the pageant cast the work done by the talent committee, the costume committee, the make-up committee, the ticket committee. the ushers and ticket-takers, the Red Cross nurses, and scores of other persons connected with the pageant alone, one gets some idea of the extent of cooperation.
But the pageant was only one feature– though the principal feature — of the celebration. Think of the cooperation shown in other events throughout the week – the merchants, industries and organizations that not only provided the beautiful floats, but contributed in so many other ways; the hundreds of people, including so many clerks in the stores, who dressed in uncomfortable old-time costumes in that sweltering weather; the farmers and other neighbors from surrounding towns who gave us such a fine exhibit; the twins who came from far and near; the old time fire companies that came from as far away as Massachusetts; and the totally unexpected number of men and women who became Brothers of the Brush and Sisters of the Swish.
One of the most notable instances of cooperation came from the Maine Central Railroad. Do you know how that miniature train one of the outstanding exhibits of the celebration — was made? It was made as a cooperative effort by the men in the various shops of the railroad — the blacksmiths, electricians, metal workers, founders, painters, carpenters, and all the rest. Every shop had a share In making that wonderful train, and every workman took commendable pride in his share of the job. Then, on the day of the big parade, the Maine Central Officials did a very gracious thing. Not only did they allow the shop workers to participate in the parade without loss of time, but they also provided cars for those railroad paraders, each car marked with a placard denoting the shop its occupants represented.
Some of you know that I have long been a railroad fan. After seeing that wonderful evidence of public spirit by both management and workers of the Maine Central, I am more of a railroad fan than ever before. I cannot resist pointing out one significant sign of the changed times exhibited in this Maine Central contribution to Waterville’s 150th birthday. I can well remember the time when a rai 1 road man would have been considered a veritable Judas if he bought an automobile. That hated rival of the railroad had no place in the railroad man’s family. Back about 1912 I can recall hearing Joe Bennett, president and general manager of my old narrow guage road, the Bridgton and Saco River, say to my father: “Well, ain’t rode in one of them contraptions yet, and I don’t intend to”. So far as I know, Joe Bennett kept his word, and went to his grave in the Bridgton cemetery behind a pair of horses.
Since we have got started on the Maine Central tonight, let’s give our attention to another item about our railroad. Mr. D. E. Decker of Clinton has shown me Time Book No. 57, Regulations for the Movement and Management of Trains on the Maine Central, to take effect Monday, May 1,1876. That was just 76 years ago, and was a great year for our whole nation, because it marked the one hundredth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence.
This was of course a timetable and instructions for employees only, and was printed in very much the same form as today. Regular freight, as well as passenger schedules are shown. A way freight left Portland at 4:10 A.M., reaching Waterville at 12: 15 and going through to Skowhegan at 2:05. Loading delays and shifting accounted for the long ten hours it took to make the trip.
As for passenger trains between Portland and Bangor, via Augusta, there were only two in each direction. A morning train left Bangor at 7:45 and reached Portland at 1:45, running time of just six hours. An evening train left Bangor at 8:00 and got to Portland at quarter of two in the morning. In the other direction there was a night train leaving Portland 35 minutes after midnight and reaching Bangor at half past six in the morning. The only day-time train left Portland at 1:40 in the afternoon and got to Bangor at 7:30 in the evening.
Over the back road — the old Androscoggin and Kennebec — there was one through train each way between Cumberland Junction and Waterville. The up train arrived here at 5:10 in the afternoon, and the down train left here at five minutes of ten in the morning.
There is an interesting comment printed on the timetable; “The stations where regular trains cross or pass each other are designated by full face figures. Trains cross when they meet and go by each other; they pass when one overtakes another and goes by it.” Mention of stations no longer used casts light on old railroad days. A prominent place in the 1876 timetable is given to Waterville Junction. That was the old meeting place of the Androscoggin and Kennebec and the Portland and Kennebec, originally roads of different guage. The junction point was between Waterville Depot and Fairfield. For instance, the timetable shows that a passenger arrived in Waterville from Portland at 5:15 P.M., left for Bangor at 5:25, going through Waterville Junction without a stop at 5:27, and stopping at Benton at 5:33.
At Watervi lie passengers for Skowhegan, arriving on that 5:15 train, changed to another train leaving at 5:27, which stopped at Waterville Junction at 5:29 and at Fairfield at 5:35. Those times Imply that the site of Waterville Junction was much nearer to Waterville than to Fairfield. Of course there were originally two Watervi lie stations, the A & K near where the Eastern Packing Company plant is now located, and the P & K near the foot of Temple Street, but I think the central station had been but It at the lower College Avenue crossing by 1876. Does anyone know whether I am right in that conjecture?
Now of course these employee timetables show locations not on the public tables; so it is possible some of the places on the 1876 table that seem unusual to a passenger may be on the employee tables today. At any rate here are some of those names you no longer see on the public timetables; Pishon’s Ferry, which of course is Hinckley, Somerset Mills (that is now Shawmut), East Turnout, between Riverside and Augusta”, State House Siding in Augusta, Camp Ground between South Gardiner and Richmond, Harward’s Road between Richmond and Bowdoinham, Oak Hill between Brunswick and Freeport. The Union Station in “Portland had not been built in 1876. After the down train left Woodfords, It made three stops — B & M Junction, Portland Yard, and Portland Depot.
The last was the 0ld depot at the foot of Preble Street. What is still perhaps the most famous community operated railroad in the United States — the Belfast and Moosehead Lake — was operating in 1876 as part of the Maine Central. It ran two mixed trains a day, just as it did 45 years later in 1921, when I used to ride it as a textbook salesman. The branch road had not yet gone through from Newport Junction to Dover, but it did go as far as Dexter, operating three dally trains in each direction, two of them straight passenger, the other a mixed passenger and freight.
One interesting change over the years concerns the compass directions. The current usage calls for east bound or west bound trains. For instance, the latest Maine Central timetable has notations like these: “stops to leave passengers from Richmond and points east”; “stops to leave passengers from Portland and west”. The table headings on the old 1876 timetable, however, read: “Trains moving North”, and “Trains moving South”. The table tells us, ”Trains from Bangor to Portland are southward trains; those from Portland to Bangor are northward trains.”
Let us now see what some of the instructions to train crews were in 1876. “All trains and engines will use two minutes crossing the bridge over the Kennebec River at Augusta”. ”The speed of all trains and engines must be reduced to six miles an hour before crossing Blind Crossing on Bath Branch.” “Section men running their hand cars over the road should so work them as to enable the men riding to look in both directions upon the track in order to avoid a collision with engines or trains out of time.” ”Wild, extra, or special trains may be run over the road by order of the Superintendent, with or without notice to other parties, and therefore the main track must always be kept clear for passage of such trains.” “The shifting engine from Waterville has right of track there between the time of arrival and departure of the regular trains.”
Those special rules for trains in 1876 were signed by that famous superintendent of the Maine Central, Payson Tucker.
Not all of the narrow guage railroads in North America have yet been abandoned. Mr. Edson Smith of Clinton calls my attention to an Interesting narrow guage, one of the longest ever bui It. It is the White Pass and Yukon Rai Iway, running the whole 110 miles from White Horse, Canada to Skagway, Alaska. Mr. Smith has been a passenger on that little railroad many times, and he believes it had the highest passenger rate of any railroad in the world, 23 cents a mile. Like my old Bridgton and Saco River, this Alaskan road is a two-footer and still uses a coal burning locomotive. However, the broad guage Alaska Railroad, operating between Seward, Anchorage, Palmer and Fairbanks, now uses modern diesels.
As a youth I was thrilled by the Klondike verses of Robert Service, particularly “The Cremation of Sam McGee”. At one terminus of this last of the narrow guage roads, White Horse, is the building in which Service did most of his writing, and not far away is the cabin of the man who was the living original of Service. Sam McGee.
Year: 1952