Railroad Survey Books and Profiles Collection

The Penobscot Central Railroad was approved in 1893 by the Maine legislature. A petition to the Maine Railroad Commissioners in 1896 asks for approval to construct and operate an electric street-railroad from Bangor through the towns of Glenburn, Kenduskeag, Levant, Corinth, Exeter, Charleston and Garland, a distance of some 35 miles. The railroad appears to have had financial difficulties from the start. Sometime around 1900 a powerhouse was built at Kenduskeag, and the cars, which had formerly used gasoline motors, began operating with electricity. This expense caused a need for bonds to be issued and by 1905 the bondholders had foreclosed. The report of the Maine Railroad Commissioners for 1905, the last in which this railroad appears, shows an operating deficit and also indicates that the line was now the Penobscot Central Railroad Company of New Haven, Connecticut.

The collection also contains various items which document efforts to develop railroads in Castine, Maine. Included are minutes of meetings held by citizens of Castine in 1871 "to consider and promote such measures as will make Castine the western terminus of the proposed railroad from the St. Croix to the waters of the Penobscot." Later records include preliminary surveys done for the Castine and Bangor Railroad in 1887 and 1888. There is no indication that this line was ever built.

The Bangor and Katahdin Iron Works Railway, some twenty miles in length and running from Milo, Maine to the Katahdin Iron Works site, was built to lower transportation costs for the Iron Works, which operated until 1890.