Radio Script #1283

Little Talks on Common Things
October 4, 1981

Over the years this program has occasionally mentioned the electric railways that operated in Waterville half a century ago. Today I want to give a more systematic account of those trolley lines that once connected Waterville, Fairfield and Oakland.

The closing decade of the 19th century saw the building of many electric railroads all over Maine. The chief promoter of those systems was Amos Gerald of Fairfield, also builder of the ornate Gerald Hotel in Kendall Mills, now Fairfield village. He was also the promoter of the amusement park on Bunkers Island between Fairfield and Benton.

On February 4, 1887, Gerald and several associates secured from the Maine Legislature a charter for the Waterville and Fairfield Railroad Co. It was not for an electric car line, but for horsecars. At that time Waterville had 7000 people and Fairfield 3000. A big boost had recently come to Waterville employment with the opening of the Maine Central car shops.

Besides Amos Gerald, original corporators of the horsecar line were Stephen Nye and Arthur Totman of Fairfield, Edmund Webb, Stephen Abbott and Perham Heald of Waterville. The stock issue ‘was very modest, only $20,000.

Track was laid from what is now Castonguay Square in Waterville to the Fairfield Post Office near the Kennebec bridges. The route encountered three railroad crossings, one at each end of the old Colby campus, and one in Fairfield. Near the present Pillsbury Farm Hachine Company, Holland Brook had to be crossed by a short pile bridge. That crossing is
now filled in over a large culvert.

A car barn ‘tvas erected at the corner of Hain and High Streets in Fairfield. The original rolling stock consisted of two 40-passenger open cars and two 20-seat closed cars. For motive power there were six horses, used two at a time. The first car ran over the line on June 23, 1888. Running time for the 3-1/3 miles was thirty minutes. The fare was five cents. Good patronage came at once. Between June 23 and September 30, little more than three months after opening, the line carried 94,800 passengers. During heavy snows no attempt was made to clear the track. Instead, the company often used two big sleigh barges to accommodate its patrons.

During the year 1889 the little road carried 233,000 passengers for an income of $11,620, netting a profit of $600, enabling a dividend of 3% to stockholders. But costs went up so that in 1890, while income increased, there was a net deficit of $390. That deficit was tripled in 1891, so that the state Railroad Commission reported: “At first this line was profitable, but two successive years of deficit now make the investment questionable.”

Clearly some change was needed. Early in 1891 Amos Gerald and five associates organized the Waterville and Fairfield Railway and Light Co., taking over the tiny. light companies that has been started in the two places, and also the old horse railroad.

In the spring of 1892 the line was electrified and the horses were sold. Generators installed in the lighting plants in Waterville and Fairfield supplied power for the cars. The first electric car went into service on June 20, 1892. That fall an extension was built south from Castonguay Square to the foot of Grove Street. In 1906 that was extended on past Pine Grove Cemetery to a point on Silver Street in front of what is now Rummel’s Ice Cream Outlet.

The Company’s plan to continue the line up Silver Street to its junction with Main Street was never carried out. At first, the old horsecar fare of five cents was continued on the electric line, and there was service from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m., mostly at half-hour intervals.

In 1900, when the line carried 430,000 passengers, the company decided to take advantage of the prosperous mill at Benton Falls, and built a branch across the Fairfield bridges to that mill. In 1906 similar connection was made from Fairfield to the mill at Shawmut. In 1904 another street railway was opened between Waterville and Oakland, and there was a considerable exchange of traffic between that road and the line from I-laterville to Fairfield.

An early plan had been to extend the Waterville-Fairfield line through Winslow to the large woolen mill at North Vassalboro. While that was not done, what did occur was the opening of a much longer line from Waterville through Vassalboro to Augusta. To supply power the Waterville and Fairfield company owned in 1902 seven water wheels and a 400 horsepower steam engine, four direct current generators, a 100 HP rotary converter, and a 200 cell storage battery. For rolling stock the road had at that time six open and six closed cars, a work car, and a snow plow.

Between 1893 and 1898 the road showed an annual profit, and stockholders received regular dividends. But something was wrong with management, because in 1899 the company defaulted on interest payments on its funded debt. Reorganization corrected the situation, and by 1911 the line was again profitable. By that time Amos Gerald was out of the picture and the company president was George K. Boutelle, a Waterville attorney, grandson of the pioneer lawyer and financier, Timothy Boutelle.

The line from Waterville to Oakland, originally a separate company, had trouble getting started. The Maine Central objected, contending that the electric road was unnecessary because the steam road offered good service between Waterville and Oakland. The backers of the electric line countered with a statement that said: “Electric cars run singly and frequently, while steam trains are much less frequent. The steam cars have only one general station in each place, while electric cars run through streets and take on passengers at numerous convenient points”.

The street car companies early took advantage of public interest in recreation. The Fairfield line operated such a place on Bunkers Island. Even before the Oakland line opened its vaudeville theatre at Cascade Park, the company had advertised in these words: “Snow Pond, the western terminus of our road, offers the public recreation advantages on one of Maine’ s most beautiful lakes. At our terminus steamer excursions and boat rentals are available. Such recreation, once considered a luxury, is now enjoyed by all classes of people.”

The Oakland car barn was a two-story structure placed on the lake shore. The upper floor was a large meeting hall, that became popular for dances. In the fall of 1909, my freshman year at Colby, my class held the traditional freshman reception in that Messalonskee Hall. For many years it had been the custom for the sophomores to invade and try to break up the freshman reception. That sophomore attack on our freshman greater numbers in 1909 was unsuccessful; so a group of sophs tried to prevent our return to Waterville on the street cars. But those cars made it all right, and four of the sophomores spent the night in the Waterville jail. As for Cascade Park, my first introduction to it came one evening in early summer of 1910, when a dozen of us Colby students went together to the vaudeville show there. The cost of the theatre ticket and trolley transportation was 35 cents.

The line profitted greatly from the boom years of the Waterville Fair. During Fair Week, every bit of rolling stock the line could muster was put into use. Double-headers were common and triple-headers not unknown. The Fair Grounds were where Seton Hospital now stands. Early in the existence of the Oakland line, Amos Gerald had the ambitious plan to connect it with a new line to be built from Oakland to Augusta through Belgrade. Nothing came of that plan, nor of another big project for an electric road from Oakland to Farmington through Smithfield and New Sharon.

Since many stockholders in the Oakland line also held stock in the Fairfield line, a merger of the two roads was almost inevitable. That occurred in 1911 when the Legislature authorized the formation of the Waterville, Fairfield and Oakland Street Railway Company, a subsidiary of the Central Maine Power Company, which thereafter owned all electric power rights in the Waterville area. First president of the new W, F & 0 R.R. was Harvey D. Eaton, who had been associated with Walter Wyman in forming the Central Maine Power Co. Ralph Patterson was the general manager. Cars left Fairfield every fifteen minutes, and left Oakland every half hour. On the Fairfield line there were two turnouts where cars met, one in front of Colby College, the other at Holland Brook. The Oakland line had several sidings or turnouts. One was on
Western Avenue near Burleigh Street, another at the Fair Grounds, and a third at Cascade Park. The one at the Fair Grounds was the meeting place for cars.

Abandonment of the local trolley lines began in 1927 when the line from Fairfield to Shawmut ran its last car. Two years later the line to Benton closed. Final closing of the Waterville, Fairfield and Oakland Street Railway took place on October 11, 1937. Publicly the company offered this face-saving statement: “Due to increase in automobile traffic, Main Street in Waterville has become so congested that there is not sufficient space for our cars and automobiles to pass at the same time. The City of Waterville desires that we discontinue operation of the street railway.” The real reason for closing was, of course, because the automobile was taking away the passenger patronage.

And with that salute to Waterville’s one-time loaded street cars, we say goodbye until next week.

Year: 1981