Skowhegan, Norridgewock, & Madison electric railway lines, ca. 1928
Contributed by Seashore Trolley Museum
Description
A hand-drawn map showing the tracks of two electric street railways: the Somerset Traction Company and the Skowhegan & Norridgewock Street Railway. The Skowhegan & Norridgewock Street Railway opened its line in 1894, inspired by the hope of generating freight traffic between the Somerset Railway at Norridgewock and the Maine Central Railway in Skowhegan. This hope did not materialize and in the face of insufficient traffic, the line was closed "temporarily" in 1903, making it one of the shortest lived electric street railways in New England. The company also developed a trolley resort called the Pines on this line.
The Somerset Traction Company opened its line from Skowhegan in 1896. The company acquired property on Hayden Lake to develop as a trolley park named Lakewood in 1902. Lakewood soon became famed as a summer theater colony. The company abandoned street railway operations in 1928.
This is Plate 30 of the Maine Electric Railway Atlas, drawn by Charles D. Heseltine and edited by O.R. (Osmond Richard) Cummings in 1970.
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