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After the schooners but before the highways, the 127-mile Calais
Branch rail corridor linked Brewer to Calais. From 1898 to 1954,
Maine Central Railroad trains rumbled north through then-booming
Washington and Hancock counties, bringing tourists, mail and com-
modities to points north before hitting a turntable at the end of the line,
fipping around and transporting lumber, gravel and blueberries south.
Te right-of-way stays fairly close to the coast. Te ocean is often visible,
especially near Machias, which is right on the water. Other sections of
railbed are as much as 15 miles inland.
Today, 85 miles of that right-of-way are seeing new light as the
Down East Sunrise Trail, which had its grand opening in 2010 as
Maine’s newest and longest rail-trail.
Sunset, Sunrise
Rail passenger service on the Calais Branch was discontinued in 1954,
as vacationers began to drive rather than ride the train. Maine’s resource
economy also struggled, as decreasing fsh stocks decimated the com-
mercial fshing business, and cheaper pulpwood from Canada weakened
demand for Maine lumber. Te railroad industry sagged nationwide,
and Maine Central Railroad couldn’t maintain the Calais Branch.
According to Sally Jacobs, past president of the Down East Sunrise Trail
Coalition, when freight operations ceased in 1984, “It took 12 hours to
go [by train] from Bangor to Calais (a two-hour drive), and they had to
change crews after eight hours. Te train was moving around 15 mph
then because of poor track conditions.”
When the sun set on 1984, those 127 miles of track and the two
counties they traversed were quiet. Coastal Down East boomed with
seasonal tourism, leaving the inland areas nearly deserted.
“Most of the tourism stops in Ellsworth,” says Hancock County
Senior Planner Jim Fisher. “Beyond there, average income drops and
average unemployment rises. Winter is not as reliable in coastal Maine
as it is in northern Maine, so the of-season is even harder.”
East Machias, near the midway point of the Down East
Sunrise Trail; below, skiing along the river through town.