Well my family finally made it to the trains in the middle of nowhere. I will say that it is something that has to be experienced to understand. I can, and will, give you the numbers, but driving on 100 miles of isolated logging roads has to be done yourself to get a sense of how isolated, and how massive these trains are.
We drove for 88 miles on state roads before we entered the Great North Woods where all the roads are private, logging roads. We also stopped for some sights like Rippogenious Dam which was just vibrating from the plume of water coming off the log flume. It has a great view of Chesuncook Lake, and the Lower Penobscot Gorege.
From there we drove another 72 miles on logging roads to get to the parking area for the trains, which was 160 miles from our home. After that, we hiked about a mile to the trains parked in the middle of the woods. The other ways to get there are by float plane, or by paddling up the Allagash Wilderness Waterway; a 7 day paddle. For those that do not know, the "Trains in the Woods" was started by a logging baron that needed to move wood to Bangor, but the river flows North instead of south. Six miles of land separated two rivers, with the second going south, so he built a railroad from nowhere to nowhere. This was back in the 1930's, and closed after just a few years. While it was operating, the town was so big, it had a semi-pro baseball team, and had some 1200 people. Today it is nothing but rusted iron in the woods.
After visiting the Trains and Log Tramway, we headed back to Millinocket, the closest town, 72 miles away. Along the way, despite having bought (4) new tires the day before, we put a rock through the tire. Luckily we made it to the Telos Checkpoint where they had a Generator, Compressor and Tire Plugs to fix our tire. There were so nice that I did not ask them to help fix the loud muffler we had from where a rock dislodged the exhaust just before the muffler.
Having now been out for 12 hours, we got a hotel room in Millinockett and let the kids swim in the pool most of the evening. Unfortunately Katie had to get home because her Grandmother had two emergency brain surgery's for bleeding on the brain, so we headed home, and got home at 11 AM...339 miles later!
It was a lot of fun though, and well worth the effort to get there! So if you do not have anything to do, like driving a few hundred miles of dirt road, do not value your truck, and love buying tires, a couple of old 90 year old locomotives are waiting for you in the middle of the Maine North Woods.
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