Last month I put out a video about the abandoned Mountain Division line in Maine with an urgent call to action. The Conway Scenic Railroad said they wanted to reopen the line but at the same time rail to trail interests were pushing for the tracks to be ripped up. A meeting was coming up regarding this issue and the decision to fund the track removal would hinge on how it went.
For those who don’t know, the Maine portion of the Mountain Division runs from Portland, Maine to Fryeburg where it meets the NHDOT section of the line at the New Hampshire state line. The tracks here were last used in 1986 and since then the tracks have sat dormant. Despite four decades of no use the rail line has been maintained to some extent. The brush is well kept which has preserved the drainage which in turn has prevented washouts and has helped preserve the ties. This is a very unique and rare version of an abandoned railroad as most other places just let the property go. In great contrast to Maine’s portion of the line, take a look at the portion of the Mountain Division in Vermont. Vermont Rail is looking to reopen the portion of track from Whitefield, NH to St. Johnsbury, VT and they have already started clearing the tracks in Whitefield. That part of the line is in much worse shape than the Maine side. In addition to the line being well kept, portions of the rail line have a bike path built alongside it. Fryeburg and Windham are fantastic examples of rail with trail even if trains do not currently use those tracks.
Now not far from the border with New Hampshire the Conway Scenic Railroad runs a successful tourist train operation on the New Hampshire part of the Mountain Division. Most people know them for the Mountaineer or Notch train excursions through Crawford Notch or perhaps for the shorter excursions that have previously operated to Bartlett. There’s even cruise train excursions that connect with charter buses that have to drive from Portland, Maine because the tracks aren’t currently in service in Maine. The Conway Scenic actually reopened the Mountain Division from Conway and into Crawford Notch in the mid-1990’s and since it has been successfully operated since then they are expanding their use of it this year. For the first time ever winter excursions ran to Crawford and riders got to enjoy the rarely seen views of the notch in winter. Looking at their website they have three separate departures for trains through Crawford Notch on select weekends this fall. This is all very exciting and shows that what they do in New Hampshire works and it would be very much possible to replicate their success in Maine as long as the tracks stay in place.
The bill associated with removing the tracks was supposed to be discussed further the following week but has now been postponed for now. This pauses the potential removal as the funding to do so hasn’t been approved. This isn’t the end of the fight though so stay tuned for future videos on how to help keep the tracks in place. I would love to see Conway Scenic revitalize this route for freight use to serve the local businesses and plan to document the rebuilding process if all goes well. In the meantime I have filmed a number of videos of the line as it is today that will be released over the next several weeks so stay tuned for those! Thanks for watching and thank you for your support of the Mountain Division Rail Line.
Here’s a link to a video of the meeting:
Timestamp is around 12:20 PM. https://legislature.maine.gov/audio/#126?event=94361&startDate=2025-04-04T09:00:00-04:00
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