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Thanks for watching!

Amen!!! 🤠👍

This particular railcar is a replica. There are several existent examples from the common carrier era, including ones in the collection of Owl's Head Transportation Museum and another owned by Maine Narrow Gauge RR Co. and Museum.

@@WWFRailway Merci.

Glad you enjoyed your ride, we hope to see you again soon! With a mainline of 3.5 miles, we are currently a couple miles short of the Monson, but maybe one day 😁

Thanks for your answer. Well Monson slate quarry is still in business ans most of its roadbed available. And you don´t even need a turntable 😅 But BAR connection is long gone. The magic of narrow gauge is may be its sheer size. A more humane dimension. Some modelers like HO to for the same reason. When you upgrade it, you have LGB or garden scale. Cool but still too small to carry us. But 1/8 is just perfect to sit ON. On standard gauge it makes the rails 7 1/4" apart. But on YOUR 2 feet... hey it´s almost 1/3 your size! Big enough to carry logs on the property and so many excuses to built a line. I´m not in steam. Far too costly. But a 1/8 scale wood burning Mason Bogie pulling logs of cut trees on flatcars won´t look bad either. Should call my big "Nooddle" neighbor and ask them to put a piece of team track for interchange. 1/8 Mason against big modern GE....what a photo it would be... but it´s their mainline. They wont agree.... What is/was the rail size, 40, 60 pounds ? Well you can enjoy slightly bigger gauge from eastern Europe railroads that were not so long ago or are still running on YT. Cars without air brakes with brakemens riders, funicular, and usual wheels kissing ballast....😊😊

It would have been used for track inspection, etc. Similar to modern hi-rail trucks today. Typically, it would not have had as much seating; but more room for tools and supplies instead.

At the WW&F Railway Museum in Alna, Maine, USA.

Thanks for the great compliment, our all volunteer track crews take a lot of pride in their right of way!

Though there were a wide range of road cars retrofitted for the two foot, I’m not sure how well a Ram would balance on the narrow gauge 😆

Yep, Ford Transits on rails! 😆

2' Gauge. The WW&F is one of Maine's storied "two-footers".

They are logging roads, owned by the logging companies. Some are open for public use. The Golden Road is perhaps the most famous of these.

Same here, And Happy Memorial Day to all who fought and served

Actually the car that ran at Edaville is a different one; which is currently a part of the collection at Owl's Head Transportation. The WW&F car is a replica, whereas the car that ran at Edaville was original to the Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes.

The jack handle is a little dry. The rest of the 24+ zerks received attention this spring.

Originally this bridge, a Howe pony truss-covered bridge, was from the Boston & Maine’s Berlin Branch, spanning the Moose Brook in Gorham. In 2004, arsonists set the bridge ablaze, it was then removed, rebuilt, and graciously donated to the WW&F by the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges, arriving to our railroad in 2017. The original WW&F Queen Post Truss Bridge can be seen in photos of the 1905 Mason’s Wreck, where locomotive #4 jumped the tracks and knocked out the supporting wooden truss, causing the span to collapse. Its replacement was quickly built, but ultimately was lost sometime after the railroad was abandoned in 1933.

@@WWFRailway Thank you for your reply, so the truss is made entirely of wood and covered in panels to preserve it from snow and the weather?

@@darylcheshire1618 Correct. The point of a covered bridge is to protect the trusses from rot. Many covered bridges used a roof to protect the bridge deck as well, but pony covered bridge was also common. Today, our bridge is only one of five that remain in all of North America.

​​@@WWFRailwayi remember that original bridge. So sad it burned such a rarity. Good to see that is back and on "active" track .

It's on the to-do list. 🙂 Fun fact: Model Ts did not come from the factory with an "ooga" horn. Instead it was a buzzer-type, referred to affectionately as the "sick duck" horn.

@@BenRichards227 Fred MacMurray lied?!

Pick them up one at Harbor Freight. I'm sure they would love to have one.

​@@ajivins1I think it was probably aftermarket...

The top speed of a regular T is about 45 mph. The top speed of this railcar is about 25 mph, which suits our 20 mph track very well. This is due to having only 18-inch rail wheels, rather than 30-inch road wheels. I am not sure of the weight but it is more than a road T.

The thing is that as time has passed, higher compression ratios have made it harder for the average driver to crank an engine over. A model T ran like 4:1 and (for example) a modern Honda Civic is up over 10:1. Even if you had a shot at one of the tiny 4 cylinder turbo engines that we have now, as you got into bigger 6 cylinder and 8 cylinder ones it would be a workout, if possible at all. Front wheel drive would be against it, too. The crankshaft is pointed into the fender sides and the wheels would get in the way! Eh! In a time when most people can't drive a car with a manual transmission, crank start is just culture shock!

He crank started it when it was warm and would fire first piston up. Starting a cold engine is another matter - it can be a lot of hard work when the engine is reluctant to fire and cold oil makes it hard to turn. Many British cars up until the 1960's could be crank handle started (Rover 90, Morris Oxford, LandRover to name a few) - well they had a hole in the front bumper where you put in the jack handle to crank with. But crank starting was problematical and somewhat dangerous. Ignition occurs before top dead centre, which can cause a hand-cranked engine to run backwards and rip your thumb off or smash your wrist. Or even cause the crank handle to ram you in your belly. Engines of thee Model T era due to low compression ratio would retain a charge of fuel/air mix in a cylinder for a while and thus fire on the first ignition event - one quarter turn of the crank. Modern high compression engines won't retain a charge and so require at least 2 full turns to start even when hot.

As of August 2022 (when we opened the mountain extension), the railroad is about 4 miles long.

Does she also have an electric starter? (I know later Model Ts had that.) What is the electrical system like? I see electric headlights and a battery, is there some kind of generator?

Yes, our Model T Railcar is a replica with a few modern touches! According to the driver of the railcar, modern components include (but are not limited to) an electric starter, a canister-type ignition coil with distributor, and a tachometer. Hope this helps answer some of your questions!

Hats off to the driver for starting her in the Vintage way! (-especially being that he could have chosen the Easy way!) I rode the very similar SR&RL #2 at Edaville 42 years ago. -Railfan's day: damp, cold, rainy! The only time I was warm all day was riding the cab of #8!

Hmmm... I guess I should have figured out the "starter" part at the very beginning!

Driver here 🙂. The crank start works well once it's warmed up. Cold electric starts are fairly reliable as well. What you saw at the beginning of the video was the worst case: a "lukewarm" start, where the engine is still cold enough to need a bit of choke but also quite prone to flooding.

We've posted a "raw footage" version for those who do not prefer the soundtrack.