Tight quarters, eagle eyes, steady hands. In Stall 2 of the WW&F Museum Shops, volunteer Stewart Rhine carefully applies the primer coat to one side of the museum's brand new Turner Center Dairying Association Reefer Car. This car is a replica of a 2-foot gauge, wooden reefer that actually served on the original WW&F back in the early 1900s. The idea for building the car was conceived in 2011 after the museum folks met with officials from the nearby town of Wiscasset. In those discussions, the museum was invited to build a display in a prominent spot in the center of town, that was being revitalized. The WW&F Team decided that a replica of Turner Reefer Car #65 would make an ideal display, because such a car would have been an almost daily visitor to the town back in the days when the narrow gauge line was in operation. Exhibits could be placed inside, and would be protected from the elements to some degree.
Construction of the new car began in late 2011, making use of wood that was literally cut from the museum's own ROW and processed locally. Hardware was obtained from various sources and two arch-bar freight trucks were built from spare hardware that was actually saved from the original WW&F by a Connecticut family.
When the car is completed in the late spring of 2012, it will be transported to a short section of track that has been placed in downtown Wiscasset, where it will serve to educate the public and attract visitors to the museum in Alna. The plan is to display the car in town during the tourist season, and to bring it back to the museum rails during the off-seasons, where maintenance can be performed and it can be run on photo freights.
