The Seashore Trolley Museum is said to be the oldest and largest electric railway museum in the world. It has amassed an extensive collection of electric mass transit vehicles and trolleys (more than 320), and features its own repair and restoration facilities. A trolley ride is offered (40-minute round trip of 3 miles) on the historic roadbed of the Atlantic Shore Line Railway. Conveniently located off I-95 in Kennebunkport, ME, at 195 Log Cabin Rd., the museum is open daily from 9:30 to 4:30 (but closed on Monday and Tuesday) through October 26. See https://trolleymuseum.org/ for admission fees, winter opening times, and other FAQs.

Of special interest to model railroaders, a new, purpose-built, building houses an HO scale model railroad representing the Maine Central Railroad, the largest such in Maine! Begun in the Jonesport, ME, home of Helen and Harold “Buz” Beal, the layout showcases their work of 35 years to completion.

2600 sq ft of space are devoted to the layout, which includes a 1040 ft main line, with 300 ft more of trackage. Run by DCC, 14-15 locomotives are rotated in, with two engines operating at any time. The Beal collection includes at least 600 cars. The viewing mezzanine has several beautiful O-scale scratch built dioramas, including one featuring the Flying Yankee.

The layout features such iconic Maine scenes as Quoddy Lighthouse, Bangor’s Union station, Dragon Cement, and a paper mill, as well as streets representing communities that the MEC served. There are also roundhouses, tunnels, bridges, rivers, and of course, seaports. Wooden buildings are mostly scratch-built by Buz, while plastic ones are from kits. Since it represents decades of work by the Beals, some work is better than others, with not much of an attempt at weathering.

Elements of Emmalyn Bentley’s layout have been incorporated to highlight the Cape Nedick/York area. There are plans for further expansion that would include the mills of the Biddeford-Saco area, and the center of Kennebunkport. A portion of the larger layout will be left semi-finished, to follow visitors to see some of what goes into the development of a model railroad.

This is a very interesting and historic HO-scale model layout, representing parts of the
Maine Central Railroad. While it is beautifully presented in itself, the rest of the Seashore Trolley Museum is also very worth visiting. I have enjoyed several visits to the Seashore Trolley Museum, and I hope that you will, too.