In general interest, if not in physical excellence, I think this road rated next to the Sandy River. Maybe its long haul influenced that. Started as the Wiscasset & Quebec Railroad its history is a long complaint of frustrations and tantrums. I won’t go into it because the _Sunset Special_ is nearly ready to go. You mustn’t miss it. Anyway, the W. & Q. was going to do big things: lay rails clear to Quebec Province, have de luxe trains with diners, sleepers, and parlor cars to make the _Rangeley_ look like a trapper’s camp. They were going to swipe the million dollar grain haul away from the Grand Trunk--just like that. Wiscasset has a fine harbor and is a little nearer Liverpool than Portland, which was the basis for their stock-selling argument. While crews were laying steel up the Sheepscot valley other men were building some old-histing great wharves at Wiscasset for the steamboat line to New York. They never splashed a paddle but to hear stock salesmen gab you’d have thought another Fall River Line was in the making. [Illustration: (_Moody Photo_) Boxcar 13--and she’s in luck to be at Edaville instead of rotting away at Bridgton Junction. The Atwood line also has a boxcar numbered 1, which is unusual. ] Its first hop was to Burnham, fifty-five miles up. Old Frustration set a derail here: the Maine Central were opposed to a crossing of their Belfast branch; so submissively and sulkily the little pike backtracked to Week’s Mills (twenty-eight miles above Wiscasset) and began a line from there to Waterville and Farmington, hoping to make the Quebec trip with the help of Sandy River rails to Rangeley. However, the Maine Central again boxed the W. & Q.’s flapping ears by refusing to let ’em cross Maine Central tracks at Farmington to connect with the Sandy River. [Illustration: (_Atwood Photo_) Steel to the West! Tracklaying on the Edaville last Spring. It was near this point that the golden spike was driven. ] [Illustration: (_Atwood Photo_) The Golden Spike. When the rails met, near the Ball Field, appropriate ceremonies were held, including Mrs. Atwood taking a whack at the golden spike (a whole lot of them, in fact) as construction men, visitors, and the pitch-pine trees witness the event. ] [Illustration: (_Atwood Photo_) These are the men who’ll guide your journey on Atwood soil; Assistant Conductor Higgins, Conductor O’Neil, and Superintendent-Agent Dunham, the last two from the New Haven railroad. ]