With her Brakeman standing watch on the catwalk of a box car, a WW&F work train backs toward a track construction site deep in the Maine woods about 1915. In reality, this photo is 95 years younger, but there's not much in this scene that screams 2010. Although the original WW&F was dismantled in the mid-1930s, and the right-of-way was reclaimed by mother nature, a group of volunteers returned to the little town of Alna, Maine in the mid-1980s with the dream of resurrecting the operation. In the ensuing quarter century, they've managed to do just that. Today, the WW&F Railway Museum operates 2-foot gauge steam trains, on the original right-of-way, with as much historical accuracy as is humanly possible. In this scene, a very authentic-looking work train is backing through an actual construction zone near the current end-of-track. As is obvious to the eye, 2-foot equipment back in "the day" was very basic. There are no steel cars, no automatic air brakes or 2-way radios on this line. The car bodies are largely made of wood, the Brakemen still roam the trains winding on hand brakes and signals are done with hands, flags, lanterns and whistles. If you want to see what railroading was really like a century or more ago, you need to plan a visit to the WW&F in Alna, Maine.
