Wiscasset before dawn. It's a frigid early morning wake-up call in the yard in Wiscasset, Maine as crews from the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway prepare their locomotives for passenger and freight services to Whitefield, Week's Mills and Albion.
This scene was created during a February, 2024 photo shoot at the WW&F Museum in Alna, Maine, which featured the museum's newly-constructed Morse Engine House. This facility, which is named for long-time museum volunteer Frederick Morse, is the most complex structure on the property to date and is a pretty faithful replica of the 3-stall roundhouse which used to exist in the Wiscasset Yard on the original railroad. The current structure is located just under 5 miles north of Wiscasset, in the town of Alna, at the site of the Sheepscot Station on the original line. Now weather-tight, museum crews are in the process of finishing the interior, which will include a heating system, smoke-jacks and all of the facilities needed to support the museum's ultimate goal of 3 operational steam engines. Pictured here emerging from Stall #2 is WW&F Locomotive #9, an 1891 Portland Company product, which ran briefly on the original railroad near the end of operations. The Number 9 is the primary steam power at the WW&F Museum. On the left, in Stall #1, is Monson Railroad Locomotive #4, which is owned by the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company & Museum. Although currently inoperable, the owners have plans to build a new boiler for her in the future.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
