Last modified August 30, 2001
The Acadia, Halifax and North Coast Railway is the name I chose for a freelance HO-scale model railroad. The North Coast, as currently envisioned, operates over the former Maine Central Railroad's Calais, Eastport, and Woodland Branches in Downeast Maine as well as the former CP Rail St. Stephen Subdivision from St. Stephen to McAdam, NB. Three short new branches were built off the Calais mainline to access various traffic sources such as granite quarries, gravel pits, foresting operations, and agricultural sources. The railroad's west end is at Brewer Junction, although trackage rights over Guilford Rail System effectively extend the railroad to Bangor and Northern Maine Junction. The east end of the railroad connects with the New Brunswick Southern Railroad at McAdam, New Brunswick.
The North Coast, like the Maine Central before it, uses a small but meticulously maintained fleet of low-to-medium horsepower locomotives. The roster currently includes 24 units, including five SW1500s (like #101 at right), seven GP38-2s, two GP15Ts and six U18Bs. The railroad also owns two SD38-2s for heavy gravel and granite trains, which usually are confined to home rails. The current locomotive paint scheme is Pine Green, Silver, and Slate Gray. Foreign power is often seen on the North Coast, as lease units, run-throughs, and units destined for the railroad's contract repair shops make their way across the railroad.
Two GP39-2H passenger locomotives, owned by Maine DOT but lettered for AHNC, are rostered to cover the rail portion of a combined rail and bus passenger service between Bangor International Airport and Acadia National Park. They are used to haul a fleet of eight Bombardier passenger coaches, which were purchased used from a northeast commuter operation and extensively rebuilt. During the winter months, several of these coaches are often leased out to other railroads for ski train service. The AHNC also has several older streamlined and heavyweight coaches for business train and dinner train operations.
Nearly 700 "home road" revenue freight cars and maintenance-of-way cars round out the fleet. Needless to say, I haven't modeled every one of these cars, but I have custom painted and lettered several examples of each car type. The largest components of the freight car fleet include 70s-era IPD boxcars, high-cube newsprint cars, open-top aggregate hoppers, and bulkhead-equipped pulpwood flatcars.
Although I have no layout yet, I expect to model a portion of the Calais Branch, probably centering around Washington Junction in Ellsworth. By swapping equipment, I will also be able to model the Maine Central era circa 1981, which was the last year before MEC was absorbed into Guilford Transportation Industries. The MEC at the time operated a fascinating mix of units on the Calais Branch, usually consisting of GP7s, RS11s, and U18Bs in a number of different paint schemes. In this photo, MEC U18B #405 and GP7 #564 (still in the older green and yellow "two stripe" scheme of the early 1960s) lead a train over a timber culvert somewhere along the branch deep in Downeast Maine.
AHNC Equipment
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| AHNC SD38-2 #302 | AHNC GP15T #600 |
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| AHNC GP38-2 #204 | AHNC 57' Mechanical Reefer #11047 |
MEC Equipment
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| MEC RS11 #802 and U18B #405 | MEC GP7 #564 |
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| MEC RS11 #802 with short train | MEC E7A #708 (custom-painted Con-Cor model) |
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| Unfinished kitbash of MEC GP-7 #593... | ...and the finished product! |
Other Models
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| CN C44-9W #2509 | BAR GP38 #90 (my first ever kitbash!) |
The AHNC system is comprised of the following rail lines:
Calais Main Line - Brewer Junction to Calais (132.20 miles)
Waukeag Branch - Washington Junction to Franklin Road (3.45 miles)
Black Woods Secondary - Schoodic to Tunk Mountain (9.13 miles)
Narraguagus Branch - Cherryfield to Deblois (12.37 miles)
Eastport Branch - Ayers Junction to Eastport (15.71 miles)
Woodland Branch - St. Croix Junction to Woodland (8.08 miles)
Milltown Running Track - Salmon Falls to Milltown Junction (4.60 miles)
St. Stephen Secondary - McAdam to St. Stephen (33.90 miles)
To view a copy of the current AHNC Timetable station pages, click here. (You will need the Adobe Acrobat PDF Reader to view the timetable - it is a 1.7mb PDF file!)
Copyright ©1997 - 2001 Jonathan N. White. All rights reserved.