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Wiscasset, Waterville And Farmington Railway
The Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway is a narrow gauge railway. The line was operated as a for-profit company from 1895 until 1933 between the Maine towns of Wiscasset, Albion, and Winslow, but was abandoned in 1936. Today, about of the track in the town of Alna has been rebuilt and is operated by the non-profit Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum as a heritage railroad offering passenger excursion trains and hauling occasional cargo. History The line began operating to Weeks Mills on February 20, 1895, as the Wiscasset and Quebec Railroad. The line was reorganized in 1901 as the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway following the inability to negotiate a crossing of the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad near Burnham Junction. The reorganized WW&F completed a branch line from Weeks Mills to the Kennebec River at Winslow but failed to negotiate a connection with the Sandy River Railroad at Farmington, and therefore never reached Quebec. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Alna, Maine
Alna is a town in Lincoln County, Maine, United States. The population was 710 at the 2020 census. Alna is home to the Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum and is noted for its historic architecture, including the early mill village of Head Tide. History Originally a part of old Pownalborough, the town was settled around 1760 and incorporated in 1794 by the Massachusetts General Court as New Milford. But residents didn't like the name, so it was changed in 1811 to Alna, Latin for alder, the tree which grows in profusion along the banks of the Sheepscot River. Alna was the site of the first fish hatchery in Maine, started shortly after the Civil War. Between 1895 and 1933, the narrow gauge Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway operated 3 stations in the town: Head Tide, Alna Center, and Sheepscot. The latter now serves as the base of operations for a heritage railway in town. Geography According to the United States Census Bureau, the town has a total area ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterville, Maine
Waterville is a city in Kennebec County, Maine, Kennebec County, Maine, United States, on the west bank of the Kennebec River. The city is home to Colby College and Thomas College. As of the 2020 United States Census, 2020 census the population was 15,828. Along with Augusta, Maine, Augusta, Waterville is one of the principal cities of the Augusta-Waterville, ME Micropolitan Statistical Area. History The area now known as Waterville was once inhabited by the Canibas tribe of the Abenaki Indigenous peoples of the Americas, people. Called "Taconnet" after Chief Taconnet, the main village was located on the east bank of the Kennebec River at its confluence with the Sebasticook River at what is now Winslow, Maine, Winslow. Known as "Ticonic" by British colonization of the Americas, English settlers, it was burned in 1692 during King William's War, after which the Canibas tribe abandoned the area. Fort Halifax (Maine), Fort Halifax was built by General John Winslow (British Army off ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jackson And Sharp Company
Jackson and Sharp Company was an American railroad car manufacturer and shipbuilder in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The company was founded in 1863 by Job H. Jackson (b. 1833), a tinsmith and retail merchant, and Jacob F. Sharp (b. 1815), a carpenter who had worked for rail car manufacturers and shipbuilders.Delaware Public Archives. Dover, DE (2009)"A Brief History of the Jackson & Sharp Company, Car and Ship Builders, 1863-1950."/ref> Rolling stock plant Jackson and Sharp built a fabrication plant, called the Delaware Car Works, in Wilmington, Delaware near the mouth of Brandywine Creek. In the early years the facility had storage capacity for 6 cars and about 100 employees. By 1880 the plant produced 400 passenger cars per year. Through facility expansions on the site, the capacity grew to 75 cars, with about 1,000 employees in the late 1880s. At that time it was considered to be the largest rolling stock plant in the Americas. Clients included Great Western Rai ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flanger (railroad)
A flanger (also known as a scraper or digger) is a railroad car that clears the space between the rails, generally of ice and snow. While a wedge plow can remove snow above the surface of the rails, the flanger removes snow and ice from below the surface of the rails where the railway wheel flanges fit. Railway locomotives and cars can be derailed if the flangeway is filled. The flanger blades are lowered below the head of the rail. Blades typically throw the snow and ice to the left of the left rail and to the right of the right rail. Some flangers have a single V-shaped blade extending between both rails while others with a separate blade for each rail are better adapted to lines with Guard rail (rail), guard rails. Some blades work while the car moves either frontwards or backwards, while other flangers have one blade for forward movement and a different blade for backward movement. While early railway wedge plows required a separate flanger, many modern plows also include fla ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Rotary Snowplow
A rotary snowplow (American English) or rotary snowplough is a piece of railroad snow removal equipment with a large circular set of blades on its front end that rotate to cut through the snow on the track ahead of it. The precursor to the rotary snowplow was the wedge snowplow. History The rotary was invented in Toronto, Canada, by dentist J.W. Elliot in 1869. He never built a working model or prototype. Orange Jull of Orangeville, Ontario, expanded on Elliot's design, building working models he tested with sand. During the winter of 1883–84, Jull contracted with the Leslie Brothers of Toronto to build a full-size prototype that proved successful. Jull later sold his design rights to Leslie Brothers, who formed the Rotary Steam Shovel Manufacturing Company in Paterson, New Jersey. Leslie Brothers contracted with Cooke Locomotive & Machine Works in Paterson to do the actual construction. Another inventor is said to be Colonel Lewis P. Campbell. He is listed in US patent 184855 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gondola (rail)
In US railroad terminology, a gondola is an open-topped rail vehicle used for transporting loose bulk materials. Because of their low side walls, gondolas are also suitable for the carriage of such high-density cargos as steel plates or coils, or of bulky items such as prefabricated sections of rail track. Gondolas are distinct from hopper cars in that they do not have doors on their floor to empty cargo. In Australia these wagons are called ''open wagons''. History The first gondola cars in North America were developed in the 1830s, and used primarily to carry coal. Early gondolas were little more than flatcars with wooden sides added, and were typically small – or less in length, and or less in weight. These cars were not widely used at first, as they could only be unloaded by workers shoveling out their cargo by hand, a slow and labor-intensive process. A solution for this problem was developed around the 1860s with the drop-bottom gondola, which had hatches installed ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Caboose
A caboose is a crewed North American railroad car coupled at the end of a freight train. Cabooses provide shelter for crew at the end of a train, who were formerly required in switching and shunting, keeping a lookout for load shifting, damage to equipment and cargo, and overheating axles. Originally flatcars fitted with cabins or modified box cars, they later became purpose-built with projections above or to the sides of the car to allow crew to observe the train from shelter. The caboose also served as the conductor's office, and on long routes included sleeping accommodations and cooking facilities. A similar railroad car, the brake van, was used on British and Commonwealth railways (the role has since been replaced by the crew car in Australia). On trains not fitted with continuous brakes, brake vans provided a supplementary braking system, and they helped keep chain couplings taut. Cabooses were used on every freight train in the United States and Canada until the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Boxcar
A boxcar is the North American ( AAR) term for a railroad car that is enclosed and generally used to carry freight. The boxcar, while not the simplest freight car design, is considered one of the most versatile since it can carry most loads. Boxcars have side sliding doors of varying size and operation, and some include end doors and adjustable bulkheads to load very large items. Similar covered freight cars outside North America are covered goods wagons and, depending on the region, are called ''goods van'' ( UK and Australia), ''covered wagon'' ( UIC and UK) or simply ''van'' (UIC, UK and Australia). Use Boxcars can carry most kinds of freight. Originally they were hand-loaded, but in more recent years mechanical assistance such as forklifts have been used to load and empty them faster. Their generalized design is still slower to load and unload than specialized designs of car, and this partially explains the decline in boxcar numbers since World War II. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Flatcar
A flatcar (US) (also flat car, or flatbed) is a piece of rolling stock that consists of an open, flat deck mounted on a pair of trucks (US) or bogies (UK), one at each end containing four or six wheels. Occasionally, flat cars designed to carry extra heavy or extra large loads are mounted on a pair (or rarely, more) of bogies under each end. The deck of the car can be wood or steel, and the sides of the deck can include pockets for stakes or tie-down points to secure loads. Flatcars designed for carrying machinery have sliding chain assemblies recessed in the deck. Flatcars are used for loads that are too large or cumbersome to load in enclosed cars such as boxcars. They are also often used to transport intermodal containers (shipping containers) or trailers as part of intermodal freight transport shipping. Specialized types Aircraft parts flatcars Aircraft parts were hauled via conventional freight cars beginning in World War II. However, given the ever-increasing size of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Portland Company
The Portland Company was established 10 November 1846 by John A. Poor and Norris Locomotive Works engineer Septimus Norris as a locomotive foundry to build railroad equipment for the adjacent Portland terminus of the Atlantic and St. Lawrence Railroad connection between Portland, Maine and Montreal. The shops opened for business in October, 1847. Its first locomotive, the Augusta, emerged from the shops in July 1848 for delivery to the Portland, Saco & Portsmouth (later part of the Boston and Maine Railroad). Over the next several decades, the Company produced in its Fore Street facilities over 600 steam locomotives as well as 160 merchant and naval vessels, railcars, construction equipment, Knox automobiles, and the like. Portland Company built the engines of the civil war side-wheel gunboats and .Switzer, November 1964, p.85 Taking into account its other products, the Company could lay claim to being one of the leading medium-to-heavy steel manufacturers in New England. The ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Forney Locomotive
The Forney is a type of tank locomotive patented by Matthias N. Forney between 1861 and 1864 and used predominantly in the USA. Forney design Forney locomotives include the following characteristics: * An wheel arrangement, that is four driving wheels followed by a truck with four wheels (though the term has become somewhat generic; many small tank engines of various wheel arrangements have been called Forneys). * No flange on the second pair of driving wheels. * The fuel bunker and water tank placed over the four-wheel truck. History The locomotives were set up to run cab (or bunker) first, effectively as a (or ), though the type achieved popularity for its ability to operate well in either direction. The wheel arrangement, with its three-point suspension, was noted for its good tracking ability, while the flangeless middle wheels allowed the locomotive to round tight curves. Placing the fuel and water over the truck rather than the driving wheels meant the locos had a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
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