{"id":5075,"date":"2018-02-23T09:50:13","date_gmt":"2018-02-23T14:50:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/?p=5075"},"modified":"2025-08-23T17:47:54","modified_gmt":"2025-08-23T21:47:54","slug":"trains-to-the-past","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/2018\/02\/23\/trains-to-the-past\/","title":{"rendered":"Trains to the Past"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"<\/a>

The trains have maintained their majesty and beauty, despite exposure to the elements for 85 years.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The people in the logging industry called him the \u201cPaul Bunyan of the North Woods.\u201d Edouard Lacroix was born on Jan. 6, 1889, in St. Marie, Quebec. \u00a0Lacroix, at the age of 14, left his hometown and moved to Nashua, N.H. \u00a0While there, he began working in a textile mill. \u00a0Lacroix felt that the textile field was not a good fit for him, so he went to work in a logging camp. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0After 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In 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. \u00a0The 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. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The 13-mile railroad would span from Eagle Lake to Umbazooksus Lake. \u00a0The logs would be loaded on the train cars at Eagle Lake and travel to Umbazooksus. \u00a0Tilted 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. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The 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. \u00a0In 1929, Lacroix\u2019s 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. \u00a0\u00a0In 1933, the trains were parked in a wooden shed on the banks of Eagle Lake and forgotten. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The 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. \u00a0\u00a0Albro Cowperthwaite, executive director at North Maine Woods office in Ashland, said that in 2017, \u201cAccording to our records, roughly 25-27 percent of people canoeing the Allagash visited the trains.\u201d \u00a0North Maine Woods is a land management company that oversees 3.5 million acres of commercial forestlands in northern Maine. \u00a0With the use of manned and automated checkpoints, they monitor recreational road usage throughout the region. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Another popular way to get to the trains is on snowmobile. North Maine Woods does not allow use of ATVs from May through November. \u00a0They do not monitor road usage through the winter months, however, making snowmobiles admissible. <\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The creation of a parking lot and marked walking trail have made foot access easier. \u00a0In 2016, 524 visitors registered to see the trains. That number increased to 1,866 in 2017. \u00a0Michael McLellan, field operations manager at North Maine Woods, said, \u201cThe walking path has made it much easier for families to take a day trip and explore a piece of true Maine logging history.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0It 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. \u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The people in the logging industry called him the \u201cPaul Bunyan of the North Woods.\u201d Edouard Lacroix was born on Jan. 6, 1889, in St. Marie, Quebec. \u00a0Lacroix, at the age of 14, left his hometown and moved to Nashua, N.H. \u00a0While there, he began working in a textile mill. \u00a0Lacroix felt that the textile […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":176,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[7381],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5075","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archives","et-doesnt-have-format-content","et_post_format-et-post-format-standard"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/176"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5075"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8752,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5075\/revisions\/8752"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5075"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5075"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/wp.umpi.edu\/utimes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5075"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}