Rails and Trails at Trout Brook Preserve
- by Isobel Curtis, Stewardship Manager
What do a conservation organization and a historic railway museum have in common? It’s a question I hadn’t considered until the folks at WW&F Railway arrived at Midcoast Conservancy’s Trout Brook Preserve by a most unusual means: steam locomotive. Since 1989, the Wisscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum has worked to restore the Sheepscot Narrow Gauge Railroad that ran from 1894 to 1933. The track has been steadily rebuilt, extending from their Alna Station over fields and forest, across Trout Brook, and finally through Trout Brook Preserve to end at Route 218. They run a wide array of events each year featuring nearby farms, food vendors, and artists. With this collaborative model, it’s no surprise WW&F saw opportunity at the end of the rail line.
Since 2020, WW&F Railway has partnered with Midcoast Conservancy to offer "Ride the Rails to Hike the Trails" events where passengers enjoy a scenic 20 minute steam train ride followed by a guided naturalist hike. This summer brought further collaboration over three work days to re-route the trail off the tracks, allowing WW&F to move ahead with plans to open the rail line bisecting the preserve and build a station at its terminus next summer.
One of these work days was supplied by a coal-powered engine loaded with tools and volunteers. As I watched it come down the tracks, I found myself transported back in time. As stewards of land and locomotives, we are both purveyors of local history. We seek to connect people with this history through direct, meaningful experience such as a hike or a train ride. Midcoast Conservancy and WW&F are also similarly powered by volunteers. Their enthusiasm makes it possible to revive the dying art of running and maintaining a steam powered narrow gauge railroad, as well as monitoring 14,00 acres of land and maintaining 95 miles of trail. Both organizations are inherently community-focused, as this is the legacy of what we protect: trails and rails, both invaluable resources to the people that use them. Perhaps a land trust and historic railway museum are not that different after all.
