Nostalgia & History > Remember the Maine(Sign).

Eastbound at Maine, AZ. October 4, 1998.

LK in AZ

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Nice shot, Len.
Is the sign gone? I didn't get a chance to check last spring while traveling across the transcon..
This was a nice treat to photograph a train at Maine on my first morning in Arizona, after flying in from maine in 1985!
George

The sign has been gone for more than a year. Somewhere in my image files I have a more recent photo of the shortened signpost minus the sign. The post in that photo was sawed clean to a height of about three feet. Even more recently the post has been removed entirely.

New Maine signs have been added at the crossover signals east of the grade crossing. Those signs are on dual metal posts.

LK

I lost photographic interest in the place when the signal bridges were removed.

Anyway, the grade crossing at Maine was where one of my favorite conversations happened between two visiting railfans and a track supervisor in a hyrail truck. We drove across the tracks, did a "U" turn and found the track guy in a Santa Fe truck chatting with the DS on the PBX frequency. Actually, he was trying to chat--the DS had him on hold.

"Got any lineup information...?" my friend asked.

"You wouldn't have enough paper to write it on," said the track supervisor.

Suddenly the DS chimed in on the radio, and told the guy in the hyrail to sit tight and call back "after I run about seven westbounds by..."

Needless to say, that snippet was all the info we needed.

During WWII, wb #19, Chief, ran overspeed around a curve and
overturned...end was a 3776 ckass 4-8-4...check ICC reports
from 1911 for full story...