Eastern Railroad Discussion > Vanceboro, Maine Border Crossing

Was up in Vanceboro, Maine today and shot these pictures of the border crossing into Saint Croix, New Brunswick, Canada.  As the train enters the United States from Canada, it pulls by what I'm assuming is a customs agent inside the little office in the picture.  He was checking for unauthorized riders.
In one of the pictures you can see a small bridge over a stream.  That is the US/Canadian border.
This was a Maine Central line to Mattawamkeag where the Maine Central branched off to go railroad west back to Bangor, Maine and further west and the CP continued on their tracks back into Canada.  I believe this is the same line that runs through Lac Megantic where they had the runaway a few years ago that killed all those people.
A regional railroad runs this line now.  I think I have this all straight. 

---

---

---

That almost wasn't an international boundary. 

The British captured Castine ME in the 1780s, and held it until the Treaty of Paris. That capture moved the Canadian border about a hundred miles south, to the Penobscot River. The Treaty of Paris gave it back to Maine. The Brits took Castine again in 1812, and held it until 1815. They also controlled the river, far into Maine.  They had to give it back at the end of the war. Again.

If they had continued to hold it, the Canadian Pacific could have had an all-Canadian route to Fredericton and Halifax.  Rum runners could have had an easier time smuggling booze into the US.

It has changed comsiderably since my visit in 1994.  Back then it was CP Rail subsidiary Canadian Atlantic (CAR).  NB Southern got it the following year.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/05/16 20:37 by K8DTI.

---

---

---

The CPR Atlantic Limited and VIA Atlantic/Atlantique passed through here.

thanks for the history/geography lesson.  I know the English wanted 2/3's of Maine after the revolution, but
​the treaty of Paris made them give up  their claim based, I have heard,, on the watershed flowing toward the St Lawrence river vs
towards the Atlantic.  

The regional RR operating this stretch of former CP is a subsidiary of industrial conglomerate JD Irving, New Brunswick Southern. West of Brownsville Jct, this line is owned by Central Maine & Quebec, which continues west through Lac Megantic. Although the NBS map shows interchange with Pan Am ex-MEC at Mattawamkeag, ME, PAR interchange traffic actually moves to/from Brownville Jct where CMQ handles the traffic to PAR at Northern Maine, Jct west of Bangor, allowing PAR to avoid maintenance on its own line to Mattawamkeag, which has very few customers. Thanks for posting.

http://www.nbmrailways.com/uploadedFiles/NBM_Railways/NBM%20Railways%20Service%20Area%20Map.pdf

 

Thanks for the history lesson, the current railroads who operate the trackage now, and the pictures that would make a great before and after.

JPB Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The regional RR operating this stretch of former
> CP is a subsidiary of industrial conglomerate JD
> Irving, New Brunswick Southern. West of
> Brownsville Jct, this line is owned by Central
> Maine & Quebec, which continues west through Lac
> Megantic. Although the NBS map shows interchange
> with Pan Am ex-MEC at Mattawamkeag, ME, PAR
> interchange traffic actually moves to/from
> Brownville Jct where CMQ handles the traffic to
> PAR at Northern Maine, Jct west of Bangor,
> allowing PAR to avoid maintenance on its own line
> to Mattawamkeag, which has very few customers.
> Thanks for posting.
>
> http://www.nbmrailways.com/uploadedFiles/NBM_Railw
> ays/NBM%20Railways%20Service%20Area%20Map.pdf
>
>  

I went out yesterday and took pictures of the track between Old Town, ME to Vanceboro, ME.  No trains to be found, just track.  I believe it won't be too many more years before the track between Old Town and Mattawamkeag will be a trail.  I wanted pictures of the track in place before they are ripped up.

Iron Road never owned anything east of Brownville Junction.  The Irvings bought the line from Brownville Juntion to Vanceboro from CP and set it up as a US carrier, Eastern Maine Railway.  The CP had earlier purchased the line from Vanceboro to Mattawamkeag, over which they had longtime trackage rights, from the Maine Central.