A visit through Machias, Maine, on August 20th, showed these changes. The old freight station has received a coat of white paint, while the 40' ex-Maine Central boxcar has been moved closer and repainted, quite authentically, though without numbers. Sadly, the rails from Machias eastward are all gone. At one end of the yard is a stack of perhaps 1000 salvaged ties and several tons of rusty rail. The denuded rail bed has been completely regraded as a "rails-to-trails" project.
Thus ends the picturesque Calais branch.

I just don't understan how come railroad over seas keep getting biger and our railroads keep getting smaller, What the heck is so special about " Rails to trails"?

Len.

Schuykill, It's simple---Americans what things NOW!!!!!!! So stores don't want to wait a day or two for goods to move by rail. Also the big thing is " NOT IN MY BACKYARD!" People don't want to see or hear trains rumbling thru their neighborhoods. It will bring down their property value or their view! Look at what's happening in one of the counties here in Jersey where the Lackawana cut-off is suppose to go thru. The people are mad that the raill bed is being re-done for passenger service cause it will pass right next a park in their town and the train will ruin the view! And the dumb family that paid to have a section of track removed from the cut-off years ago to have their pool put in. They thought the tracks were abandoned so they claimed the bed as their own, now they are sueing the town because their pool is in the right of way. HEHEHEHEHE The railroad told them move the pool or it gets filled in by them. These people are crazy with these home owners associations---Walls are put up in Jersey along highways so the stupid people can't hear the highway. The highway was there when you bought the house, now they sue to get a wall put up so they can have some quiet!!!!!!! These are the same people that complain about the traffic here and when a idea for a passenger service to come back from Scranton to Hoboken they say "NOT IN MY BACKYARD!" ok I'm off my soap box.

If the railroad was laid way before they came there, well they knew there were tracks back there, and if they paid money to have them remove with out contacting any of the township or railroad company, they are trassping. It's like the case here in Birdsboro,Pa. where the quarry reopen a part of the old Reading W&N branch. the town people removed the rails, with out premission.

Len.

Yeah we all know it's tresspassing but not the lawyers! They can claim squatters rights here in Jersey believe it or not. The governor of Jersey, Corzine, did sign the budget for $8.6 mill to at least get the tracks done to Port Jervis, NJ, I think or its the money to finish the environmental impact, across the river from PA. So the project is moving but slow. PA is still on the fence about their side of the river but there seems to be a push for it with the gas prices the way they are. Steamtown would benefit from it cause the plans are for the passenger service to end at the platform for Steamtown. How about an excursion from Steamtown to Hoboken???????? I think B&O 3713 would look good doing that!

I don't know where yo get the impression that foreing railroads "keep getting bigger." Many foreign railroads have been going through the exact same changes as American railroads, with lesser-used and obsolete branches being abandoned and other lines being rebuilt and upgraded. The Calais Branch is the moral equivalent of a remote branch line in a far corner of Scotland or at the end of the Breton or Asturian Peninsula, and is simply not comparable to anything like the French TGV, the rebuilt British East Coast Main Line, or the BNSF or UP adding third or fourth tracks to their main line routes.

A similar situation happened when the Electric City museum extended their trolley line in Scranton. Though not in service, the line was never abandored. Neighbors had dumped trash and built pools & sheds on the ROW. They were indeed removed and the tracks now used for trolley excursions and revenue freight.

Well, it beats the snot out of "rails to reversion"... strip malls and condo complexes built on the RoW, loss of corridor and no hope of anything EVER going back in, rail or otherwise. That's what happened to the Santa Fe through Berkeley, the SP through Pleasanton, and several Pacific Electric lines in L.A. No rails, no trails. Just more automotive sprawl built on top of what could've been the solution.

Now admittedly the bicycle types are a tenacious bunch, and it'd be a heck of a fight prying a bicycle path away from them. You'd have to give them something else that's better. But relative to the cost of a new project, that'd be cheap. And far easier than prying it away from the condo and strip mall owners.