From the time that the first train with passengers ran on the Belfast & Moosehead Lake tracks in Waldo County, Maine, in late December, 1870 until Septmber, 2014, its 33.07 mile grade ran from right next to Belfast's harbor to the far end of the county where it joined the Bangor to Portland main line of the Maine Central Railroad at Burnham Junction. Since then, however, that grade has been some 3.2 miles shorter as the section from Belfast belonging to the City of Belfast was pulled up to be converted to a running and bike path and all excursion train operations on the line now run from the City Point Central Railroad Museum located at what was MP 3.2 of the original line.

The composite picture below is of the "Beavertail Curve" just slightly beyond MP 1. I took the upper image (by moonlight) in 2011 showing how it looked for 145 years and took the lower one in September, 2015 of how it looks now with the track gone. The steel rails seen in the upper image were laid down by the MEC prior to 1925 when that road gave up its lease on the line after operating it for 55 years as its Belfast Branch. Those "new" rails (most of which were branded as having been rolled between the late 1890s and WWI) replaced the road's original late 1860s iron "pear rail" that had been rolled in and imported by sailing ship from Wales to Belfast. The rails just pulled up have since been scrapped and the steel "melted down for razor blades".

Photographed by Bruce Cooper, September 1, 2015.
Added to the photo archive by Bruce Cooper, September 10, 2015.
Railroad: Belfast & Moosehead Lake.

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