The trains have maintained their majesty and beauty, despite exposure to the elements for 85 years.
The people in the logging industry called him the “Paul Bunyan of the North Woods.” Edouard Lacroix was born on Jan. 6, 1889, in St. Marie, Quebec. Lacroix, at the age of 14, left his hometown and moved to Nashua, N.H. While there, he began working in a textile mill. Lacroix felt that the textile field was not a good fit for him, so he went to work in a logging camp.
After learning the ins and outs of the mechanical side of logging, Lacroix was not content to stay a mere chopper. At 18 years old, he returned to Quebec to learn the business side of the industry. Lacroix quickly learned enough about logging to start his own career.
In 1925, Lacroix and Fred Gilbert, woodlands superintendent of the Great Northern Paper Company, needed to find a way to move pulpwood from the Chamberlain and Eagle Lake area to the paper mill in Millinocket. The rough waters of the East Branch stream made it near impossible to drive the logs. They had to find an alternate route that would bypass the East Branch.
The 13-mile railroad would span from Eagle Lake to Umbazooksus Lake. The logs would be loaded on the train cars at Eagle Lake and travel to Umbazooksus. Tilted trestles would then dump the logs into Eagle Lake. From there the men would drive the logs down river to Chesuncook Lake, to the West Branch of the Penobscot and into Millinocket. If it worked, Lacroix would have found a way to surpass the East Branch. Lacroix decided to take the chance and in 1926, the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad was born.
The Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad ran from 1927-1930. Hundreds of thousands of cords of pulpwood moved from the Allagash River down to the Penobscot. In 1929, Lacroix’s Allagash operations ended and as a result, the need for the trains became less and less. The cost to transport the trains out of the woods would far exceed their worth. In 1933, the trains were parked in a wooden shed on the banks of Eagle Lake and forgotten.
The Ghost Trains (as they have been nicknamed) have recently become a popular tourist destination. In the past, the most common way to access the trains was by water on the Allagash Wilderness Waterway. Visitors canoeing all or part of the 91-mile stretch often make pit stops to see the trains. Albro Cowperthwaite, executive director at North Maine Woods office in Ashland, said that in 2017, “According to our records, roughly 25-27 percent of people canoeing the Allagash visited the trains.” North Maine Woods is a land management company that oversees 3.5 million acres of commercial forestlands in northern Maine. With the use of manned and automated checkpoints, they monitor recreational road usage throughout the region.
Another popular way to get to the trains is on snowmobile. North Maine Woods does not allow use of ATVs from May through November. They do not monitor road usage through the winter months, however, making snowmobiles admissible.
The creation of a parking lot and marked walking trail have made foot access easier. In 2016, 524 visitors registered to see the trains. That number increased to 1,866 in 2017. Michael McLellan, field operations manager at North Maine Woods, said, “The walking path has made it much easier for families to take a day trip and explore a piece of true Maine logging history.”
It is not clear if the increase in visitors was due to the new walking trail or if the grapevine has finally leaked the secrets of these hidden gems. Either way, visits to the trains are on the rise and worthy of a day spent in the woods.
