mainegardenrailwaysociety2023

   How about those nice looking MGRS gold colored metal  [ NAME TAGS ] ?  If you do not have yours yet, it should be arriving in your mail box very soon.  Thanks to Carl who has personally just finished sending them all out.  They are being given to all 2010 MGRS voting members free of charge as a thank you for your participation in Maine Garden Railway Society. 

OK, Our Name Tags are not that big.   But, this is a picture of exactly where we will be located in what the Maine Mall refers to as 'Center Court', a large open area beneath the central skylight.  What a perfect spot!  It is not only a prime location, it is air conditioned, temperature controlled, bright and clean, good food, security, restrooms, and oh yes. . . Lots of interested people to see what we do.  Who knows, you might even see Santa or get a little shopping done.

I loved our train ride together and I want to do it again some time.  In fact I all ready received a suggestion for next year.   Barry, said we ought to go on the fall foliage trip to Crawford Notch. It take 5 hours to do the round trip which includes the famous Frankenstein trestle.  I guess we would bring a picnic lunch with us.  I do not know.  But, it does sound like fun.  I am sure there are lots of good ideas and we will have fun thinking about it over the winter.  Maybe at our Spring luncheon or the Annual Meeting we can vote on what people would like to do.  If you have a suggestion let us know about it. 

Ben and I visited the WW&F railway at Alna, Maine over the weekend.  They Ran their  new Model T rail car…yep new!  They purchased engine and body parts and built up the car as it would have been built in the 1920’s.  it is essentially a replica of an inspection car used on the Sandy River and Rangely Lakes railroad 80 years ago.  The original resides at the Owls head transportation museum. I took some video of the trains and have put together a little presentation;  Click Here Thanks Eric ~ Love the Model T

I looked up FL9 in Wikipedia and guess what picture I saw?   Click here

   First, Thank You to all the members, family and friends that went on the train ride.  That is what made it so good. There were lots of people getting together,  some who traveled long distances to be there.  Everybody was able to enjoy the nice large comfortable private car we had.  It was perfect for us, We all enjoy trains and we all had fun together!  Here are just a few pictures of the trip, but there are many more great stories to tell about the day! Mike and Barry got a close up look at the cab.  Scott will be releasing his inside story of what it is really like to drive a FL9.  All together it was a great day and thank you Maine Eastern,  you did your part too. good memories. Plase click here to see Slideshow   Contributors: John/Scott/Mike  Thank you   I know other people took pictures.  If you can email them, send them to mgrsadmin@gmail.com and I will add them to the slideshow and Scott may use...

Some forty members of the MGRS boarded the Maine Eastern Railroad in Brunswick this Saturday, September 25th, for a spectacular round trip to Rockland. A more beautiful day cannot be imagined, nor better scenery or company. Our son even celebrated his birthday. The engine (my youngest brother told me this evening in a phone call to Colorado) is an FL9 built specially for the New Haven R.R. in 1956. It's 2000 hp diesel engine was once supplemented by an electric motor, which supplied power when the unit ran into New York City. The engineer on our homeward trip today, Leon Peaseley, says that Amtrak used this engine until it came to the Maine Eastern. Here are a few pictures of our journey on the perfect 1:1 train set. And, yes, I know who blew the horn on some of those sixty-six railroad crossings. It definitely helps to have an Iron Horse press pass. Thanks, Maine Eastern!