Narrow Gauge Rail Road Hike Sebago-Bridgton

Bridgton & Saco River Narrow Gauge Railroad

Established in 1882, the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad was a narrow-gauge railway that connected Bridgton, Maine with Hiram, which was located on the standard-gauge Maine Central Railroad (for freight transfer, cars had to be off-loaded from one to the other on parallel sidings). The line was an important link for the Bridgton-Lakes Region area, connecting it to the outside world for both freight and passengers, which encouraged the summer tourist trade.

In 1898 the line was extended from Bridgton to Harrison, at the northern end of Long Lake. The Maine Central Railroad purchased the B&SRR in 1912, but by the 1920s competition from trucks and buses severely cut into the railroad's financial well-being. Re-organized in 1927 as the Bridgton and Harrison Railroad, it operated until 1941, when the equipment was sold and the track torn up and sold for scrap.

Much of the rolling stock went to the Edaville Railroad, an outdoor museum in Massachusetts, and is now on display and in use at the Narrow Gauge Railroad Company and Museum in Portland, Maine.

http://bridgtonhistory.org/Museum/Narrow-Gauge-Railroad