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Abandoned Locomotives in the Wilderness (Northwest Piscataquis, ME)
Location: 46°19’20.8”N 69°22’30.0”W (46.322444, -69.375000)
Eagle Lake and West Branch Locomotives
Northwest Piscataquis, ME
46.322737, -69.375014
Abandoned Locomotives in the Wilderness (Northwest Piscataquis, ME)
The Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad (EL&WB) operated only a few years in a location so remote the steam locomotives were never scrapped and remain exposed to the elements. The locomotives were relatively obsolete and weren’t worth the work and expense of moving them. The EL&WB operated 13 miles (21 km) of 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1,435 mm) standard gauge track from 1927–1933 in Penobscot and Piscataquis Counties in Maine.
Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad Locomotives. Photo by Will Leavitt, July 28, 2013. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Locomotive #1 is on the right; locomotive #2 is on the left.
Locomotive #1 was a 4-6-0 built by Schenectady Locomotive Works (1848–1901, Schenectady, NY) in June 1897 as Chicago Junction Railway #109. It became the Indiana Harbor Belt Railroad #109 in 1907 and was later renumbered #115. Later, it became New York Central Railroad (NYC) #63 class F53 before being bought by the EL&WB in 1926.
Locomotive #2 was a 2-8-0 Consolidation built by Brooks Locomotive Works (1869–1901, Dunkirk, NY) in December 1901 as Lake Shore and Michigan Southern Railway #780, later renumbered #5780. Later, it became NYC #26 class G43a in 1914 when the LSMSR merged into the NYC. Eventually it was bought by the EL&WB in 1926.
Both locomotives were coal burners converted to burning oil for work in the forests where fire was a danger.
Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad Locomotive #2, a 2-8-0 Consolidation. Photo by Will Leavitt, July 28, 2013. Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
YouTube Video
Dylan Magaster uploaded a video about the locomotives to YouTube on Aug 12, 2016.
Sources
_____. “The Eagle Lake & West Branch Railroad”. Maine Bureau of Parks and Lands. No date. Accessed January 17, 2018.
Symonds, Richard N., Jr. “Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad: Meeting the Challenge of Logging in the North Maine Woods”. Eagle Lake & West Branch Railroad. February 16, 2012. Accessed January 18, 2018.
Wikipedia contributors. “Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad”. Wikipedia. June 7, 2017, 12:25 UTC. Accessed January 18, 2018.