The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, Serving Northern Maine

The Bangor and Aroostook Railroad, a company synonymous with the State of Maine, as all of the railroad's trackage was found within the state's borders. The BAR, as it was also known (these were its official reporting marks), is a very recent fallen flag. After the railroad lost a major part of its overall potato business when, in the late 1960s, Penn Central’s service was so horrific that almost an entire season’s crop rotted in transit, it struggled to make ends meet. After a number of acquisitions and attempting to survive on the remaining paper and lumber business of northern Maine its owner by 2003 (Iron Road Railways) declared the railroad bankrupt and its lines were sold off to Rail World, Inc. and the company renamed the new railroad the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway.

Being that Maine was still extremely isolated by the late 19th century (so much so that for years the northern areas of the state did not have adequate highways and other important infrastructure), the Bangor and Aroostook earned healthy profits for years on potatoes and timber. One of its largest customers, Great Northern Paper, would supply the railroad with business for decades and would be the driving force behind the railroad gaining its one and only port connection along Penobscot Bay in the early 1900s (Searsport and Cape Jellison).

Throughout the years this setup would change little, hauling timber, coal (early on for the paper mill operations), and potatoes to either port or connections with southern railroads (such as the Maine Central), which would earn the railroad substantial profits. Along with this the BAR operated a small fleet of passenger trains between Bangor and northern points (aside from this the rest of the railroad’s passenger operations were with mixed freights or local runs), the most famous two being the Aroostook Flyer and Potatoland Special.

The little railroad found in the northern, virtually unknown and unheard of areas of Maine, surprisingly would find itself in a pop star role beginning in 1950 that really never disappeared. That year the Bangor and Aroostook decided to build a fleet of 500 insulated refrigerator cars (known as refers, the railroad needed these cars to keep their potato shipments at a constant 40 degrees Fahrenheit while en route to market) and painted them in a striking and eye-catching Americana scheme of red, white, and blue with STATE OF MAINE PRODUCTS proudly adorning the cars’ flanks. The cars’ celebrity status came from them touring the country when leased out to railroads and companies for use when the BAR did not need them.

As the 1960s progressed things slowly went downhill for the railroad. During this time with highways and interstates ever-expanding, the trucking business began to slowly eat into the BAR’s lucrative potato business. Essentially the railroad’s entire “left arm” of earnings would lose this business virtually altogether by the end of the 1960s when the Penn Central’s service was becoming so bad that an entire season’s crop rotted in transit when it became lost in the PC’s Selkirk Yard in New York. What resulted was not only lost profits for the BAR but also the farms themselves as many went out of business soon after the service collapse and those that remained chose never to ship by rail again.

This loss of business would begin the path to the BAR’s eventual end in 2003. While it continued to serve paper mills it struggled to make ends meet and would be purchased by the Amoskeag Corporation, the same year of the PC disaster, 1969. In the early 1990s the railroad’s ownership changed again when its final owner, Iron Road Railways, purchased it. Never truly recovering from its potato loss the Bangor and Aroostook continued to struggle under Iron Road Railways and when the paper mills it served could no longer support the railroad financially its owner elected to file it for bankruptcy in the early 2000s, selling off its property to Rail World, Inc. in 2003 which renamed the route as the Montreal, Maine & Atlantic Railway. With this sale the BAR ended an interesting history of Maine railroading that had carried on for over 110 years.

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For a complete/all-time Bangor and Aroostook diesel roster please click here. Additionally, here is an excellent listing of EMD-built locomotives, including those owned by the BAR. Lastly, for a list of preserved Bangor and Aroostook diesel locomotives please click here.

Electro-Motive Corporation/Electro-Motive Division

General Electric

For a more complete roster of Bangor and Aroostook steam locomotives please click here. Also, for information regarding surviving BAR steam locomotives please click here.

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