School's In, All Aboard
©2024, George J. Irwin. All rights reserved.

August, 2022...

Having grown up near the Jersey Shore, I knew that the absolute worst traffic during the summer leaving that area was on Sunday night. The vacationers’ time at the beach had concluded for the weekend, or week, or two weeks, or month, earlier that day and it was time to return home and yield to the next renter in line. That backed up the northbound Garden State Parkway monumentally, sometimes worse than on a weekday rush hour. “Traffic for miles” was not an exaggeration. This led to my general policy that I did not visit the Jersey Shore between Memorial Day and Labor Day.

On our 2019 trip to Maine, however, Colleen and I discovered that the “exchange day” for the Maine Coast is not Sunday, but Saturday. All roads eventually lead to Interstate 95, and by the time the border between Massachusetts and New Hampshire is reached, the number of vehicles headed northbound reaches an impressive amount. Add in Road Construction and, well, let’s just say that getting there was not half the fun.

So I selected a different route for our 2022 travel. After spending Friday night just outside of Springfield, Massachusetts, which is just about the halfway point on a more typical route between Western New York and the Central Maine Coast, we got an early start on Saturday Morning and headed almost straight north on Interstate 91 toward Saint Johnsbury, Vermont. On the way we stopped for breakfast in Brattleboro, at an old school diner that had a technologically modern method of providing an eclectic mix of familiar and less recognizable songs. I don’t know what I enjoyed more: the ham and cheese omelet with genuine Vermont cheddar, or the soundtrack that accompanied the meal.

Just before Saint Johnsbury, we quit the Interstate for US Highway 2, from the previous generation of Federal Highways. Route 2 is different from most others in that it starts in Houlton, Maine, nominally ends just south of the border with Canada in Rouses Point, New York, and then picks up again at Saint Ignace, Michigan (until 1983, Sault Saint Marie, Michigan) for another 2100 miles or so west to Everett, Washington. For most of its route, it is the northernmost Federal Highway in the Continental United States, which is as it should be given its number. It’s a “Blue Highway” as labeled by William Least Heat Moon, the author of a book with that same title that is a most valued item in my reading accumulation (it’s autographed!). US 2 absolutely deserves that “Blue Highway” designation, for probably its entire length.

Roughly east from Saint Johnsbury, US 2 runs through the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont and then into New Hampshire, along a path that could not possibly be called straight. At Lancaster it merges briefly with US 3, a north/south highway from Boston to the Canadian border at almost the top of New Hampshire. Lancaster also had a small downtown section with a bakery that sold large, sweet, sticky, gooey cinnamon rolls which were purchased for breakfast the next morning. Then it was back on Route 2, skirting the northern side of the mountains named for early Presidents, the most notable of which is Mount Washington. There were many cars parked along the road which had brought hikers into the area.

At Gorham we picked up a relatively well-maintained railroad that followed Route 2, along with the Androscoggin River, both of which paralleled the road across the border into Maine. Almost immediately after the small Welcome to Maine sign was a sign indicating that there was a railroad depot ahead which was open on Saturday afternoons. We were closing in on a parade of slower moving cars anyway and decided to pull over for another unscheduled stop. Crossing the single railroad track to our north we headed onto a side street next to them and found ourselves at a small depot which was looked after by the Gilead Historical Society.

Yes, the first settlement after heading east into Maine from New Hampshire is actually called Gilead. I suppose it’s possible that Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale, might have heard of the town, and possibly even passed through it at one point (she is Canadian so that’s not a stretch), but Gilead as a name dates back to Biblical Times. However, officially it is the Balm of Gilead tree for which the town was named in 1804 when incorporated from what was previously known as Peabody’s Patent.

There is no United States Census in which the population of the Town of Gilead has been more than 349, and that was in 1850; since then, the resident count has bounced around between that high and the low of 136 in the 1960 census. So it’s not surprising that a non-trivial number of living rooms are larger than the entire Gilead Depot, once a station on the Grand Trunk Railway.

For my railfan friend who are reading this, no, I don’t mean the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, which historically operated principally from Detroit and Port Huron west-southwest to the Chicago area with a number of branches. The GTW was a subsidiary of the Grand Trunk, however. In 1860 it was perilously close to bankruptcy, but just seven years later, the Grand Trunk was the largest railway system in the world, connecting its ocean port at Portland, Maine to its Saint Lawrence River port at Rivière-du-Loup, and much of southern Ontario and Quebec including Montreal, Toronto, and Windsor (also known as “South Detroit” if you’re a fan of the band Journey). But several really bad decisions including allowing itself to be pressured to build the Grand Trunk Pacific Railroad on a suboptimal route to the West Coast of Canada caused its downfall. In 1920 it and several other lines were smashed into the government controlled Canadian National Railways. Among those who lost their fortunes from this were the fictional character Lord Grantham of Downtown Abbey (Season 3, Episode 1), who’d invested most of his American wife Cora’s fortune in the Grand Trunk. It didn’t help that in the previous year, the relatively frugal President of the Grand Trunk went down with the Titanic.

Nationalization notwithstanding, the line that went through Gilead on the way to Portland, Maine remained a part of the Canadian National System, although with the rather awkward name of “Grand Trunk Railway System (Lines in the United States, East of the West Bank of the Detroit and Saint Clair Rivers)” in some publications including the Official Railroad Equipment Register. The CN had other lines reaching ice-free ports in the Canadian Maritimes, so the importance of this line diminished as time went on. With the deregulation of the railroad industry, it became much easier to “spin off” marginal trackage to shortline operators, and that’s what happened to the line through Gilead. In 1989 the Saint Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad took over operation of that portion of the line that ran in the United States. The name chosen harkened back to the Atlantic and Saint Lawrence Railroad, the original name of the line that Grand Trunk had leased in 1853 to gain access to Portland.

The small depot at Gilead was built back in 1851 and it is the oldest surviving train station in all of Maine. Its own history includes several moves, including down the line to Auburn where it served as a non-railroad office before being returned to Gilead for its current use by the Gilead Historical Society. It's not absolutely known what the original configuration of the building was, but those who have been restoring it have a pretty good idea: Stationmaster’s Office on the left as you walk in and the waiting area for passengers and freight on the right. This original station was supplanted by a larger one in 1893—that replacement is gone—and then became a track maintenance storage facility in 1950s after passenger service ended. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places while it was still in Auburn.

Colleen and I were greeted by a member of the Gilead Historical Society as we approached the diminutive building. Inside, there were exhibits and artifacts spanning from when the station was still part of the Canadian National System through when the line was spun off to the Saint Lawrence and Atlantic and then to and after its 2002 acquisition by the large shortline operator Genesee and Wyoming Industries, a company that got its start not far from where we live in Western New York.

I spent quite a lot of time talking to our guide, who was knowledgeable about the history of both the structure and the railroad it served. We pretty much covered everything on exhibit at least twice. I couldn’t blame Colleen for stepping away about a third of the way through this discourse; she appreciates trains, but not at the level that I do. I could say the same thing about her interest in crochet—well, no, that’s not fair to her since she knows much more about railroads than I know about crochet.

After placing a donation in the unobtrusively placed box for that purpose, hopefully enough to literally keep the lights on in Gilead Station for a few more Saturdays, I thanked the guide, exited, and looked for Colleen.

I didn’t need to search far; she was in the next building over. Significantly larger than the depot, but still relatively small as was fitting for the size of the community it served, this structure was once the community’s one room schoolhouse. It was built in 1903 and probably stood much as it did when it was first constructed, a charming building, clapboard and trim all in white. A simple black and white sign “Gilead School” hung on the front of the building. It, too, was open to visitors on this day.

Inside was a large assortment of items that might have been found in any number of schoolhouses through the years. There was a variety of books that would have been suitable for students. There were basic board games, though much earlier versions than the ones I had as a child. And hanging from the wall was a large pull-down Map of the United States… all forty-eight of them. It would have to date to after the 1912 admission of Arizona but prior to the 1959 admission of Alaska and Hawaii to the Union. Given my deep interest in maps of all kinds, when began when I was in elementary school, of course I would be drawn to that item—not that I could miss it considering its size and prominent position on the wall in the room. Also not likely to be missed was the blackboard, upon which were written things that might have been seen and studied in the earlier days of the school’s existence. To that end, there were photos on the wall showing what the school looked like when it was in operation in this building. And no exhibit of this type would be complete without the desks that would be considered absolutely old-fashioned now, but were only slightly outdated when I was in elementary school. Colleen was drawn to the sampler that was on display, an item that goes back considerably farther in educational history than pull-down wall maps.

I can’t remember much more about what else was on exhibit at the Gilead School. But it was also the headquarters of the Gilead Historical Society. As such, like the train station, it was also staffed on this day by volunteers who answered questions and generally guided the few visitors around the schoolhouse. We had a wide-ranging discussion that covered numerous topics, not least of which was how education had changed not only since the school building was constructed in 1903 but in the years since Colleen and I had been through the educational system. I think the volunteers were happy for the company and the conversation. We told them that we were both writers and that at some point I would compose something about Gilead as part of our continuing travelogue.

Then, it was all aboard for the next part of the adventure. The traffic was certainly not a distraction.

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