Talk:Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad (1871–2007)

Comments

I visited this railroad personally on Columbus Day 2006. I talked to the actual conductor of the train. I am editing this based on that discussion.

Merger

I support the proposed merger of this article into the longer one about the older railroad. PRRfan (talk) 15:14, 3 July 2012 (UTC)

Two sentences

Hi, Centpacrr. I seem to be having trouble grasping the intended meaning of these sentences: "The road was operated under lease by the Maine Central for its first 55 years as its Belfast Branch providing both passenger and freight service. When the MEC cancelled its lease in 1925, however, operation of the line was assumed under its own name for the first time by the majority City of Belfast owned B&ML company." For the first sentence, let me offer a tweak: "For its first 55 years, the road was operated under lease by the Maine Central as its Belfast Branch; it provided passenger and freight service." By starting the sentence with the time element, it cues the reader to the contrast with the next sentence; by using a semicolon instead of the gerund "providing," it cleans up the grammar. Look good? The second sentence is more confusing to me. For one thing, "...was assumed under its own name for the first time..." makes it sound like it was known by the B&ML name previously. Was that the case? For another, "by the majority City of Belfast owned B&ML company" is at the least in need of some hyphens. But I think a better way to go would be to explain just what was going on. Was the company owned partially by the city government and partially by private investors? PRRfan (talk) 20:17, 30 May 2013 (UTC)

I did not use the ";" break in the first sentence because I have always found this a very awkward and unnatural usage that breaks up the flow of information. This is not the way that people think and/or talk. I also don't see any reason why it would be better to include the time element at the start of the sentence as my wording makes it clear that the MEC only operated the line under lease for 55 years. As for the second sentence, "The Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad Company" was chartered by the State of Maine on February 28,1867, financed and built the line over the next four years, and operated as its owner and an active corporate entity until about 2005. The City of Belfast owned 5,004 of that company's slightly over 6,000 shares from 1867 until 1991. Another 600 shares were owned by the towns of Brooks, Unity, and Thorndike, and the rest by private investors. While the MEC operated trains over the line as its "Belfast Branch" from April, 1871 until December 31, 1925, the B&MLRR company always owned the line. With the MEC's June 30, 1925 cancellation notice for the lease, the road's operations were assumed by the B&ML company for the first time on January 1, 1926 which was also the first time that trains ran under the name "Belfast & Moosehead Lake Railroad" even though the company itself had always owned it. Although I only summer in Belfast (I live in Pennsylvania), I have been involved with, was once a small shareholder in, and have been writing about and photographing the B&ML for more than thirty years. For more details on this subject you can read my extensive on-line history of the B&ML at my site about the road, BMLRR.com. Centpacrr (talk) 00:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Great; sounds like we're well-equipped to lay out the history clearly. Here are a few tweaks to help do so. In the first sentence, the placement of the years makes it sound like the emphasis is on the B&ML connecting to the MEC for that length of time, when we actually want to emphasize that the railroad operated over that span. In the second sentence, putting "55 years" at the start of the sentence, besides the two reasons I mentioned, solves the problem of having two "its" five words apart that refer to different nouns. Finally, now that I understand what happened a bit better, we can help readers do so as well by introducing the B&MLRR company earlier in the intro, allowing us to remove needless words from the paragraph's final sentence. PRRfan (talk) 03:23, 31 May 2013 (UTC)

Thanks for adding details. I think we've managed, however, to bulk up the intro too much. I'm going to streamline the intro by moving detail into the main body; feel free to fix. PRRfan (talk) 18:56, 5 June 2013 (UTC)

Swedish steam locomotive

Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad (1871–2007)#Tourist railroad. Was the steam locomotive bought directly from the Swedish State Railways or was it perhaps bought from the Hull–Chelsea–Wakefield Railway? A better description seems to be in order. Peter Horn User talk 00:56, 28 May 2017 (UTC)

Peter Horn User talk 02:00, 28 May 2017 (UTC)