Here we are--the screenhouse. Cranberry bogs have screenhouses the same
as railroads have trains. These screenhouses, where berries are cleaned
and graded and prepared for market, may be anything from a rough shed to
this super structure here. This is the first one of its kind, too: a
big, yet compact, brick show-place housing not only the berry equipment
and the car shops, the company offices including Mr. Atwood’s own
private sanctum (most admired spot in Edaville!), but brimming with
storage space as well.
[Illustration:
(_Hosmer Photo_)
Mr. Atwood’s model screenhouse, the finest in the world, built in 1940
at a cost of--well, that doesn’t matter.
]
The railroad really begins here. Maybe that’s because the first rails
were laid into it for car repairing. There, clustering around like
chicks with Mama Hen, is the railroad station and most of the yards.
[Illustration:
(_Moody Photo_)
No dieselization on the Edaville. Here passenger extra No. 7 sails
past work train on sandpit spur.
]
What a sight! Cranberry architecture and railroad artistry all mixed
together under the green pine trees. See the vivid contrast--yellow sand
and the bright blue sky. The red freight cars, and green passenger
coaches sporting their goldleaf name of _Edaville_ along the sides.
Eh? Those other names? Oh; Mr. Atwood restored these cars to their
original appearance and part of his pristine program was to letter
several of them as they were in the beginning. The parlor-car is _Sandy
River & Rangeley Lakes_, one ancient coach is _Bridgton & Saco River_,
and that other one once rolled over the old _Wiscasset & Quebec_ rails.
The idea makes a hit, too.
See--there are some trains scurrying about their cranberry work, while
that string of shiny passenger cars at the station, headed by the
impatient little homuncular engine, is waiting to take you for a ride.
[Illustration:
(_Moody Photo_)
No. 7 hauls Mr. Atwood’s passenger train, loaded with a hundred of his
guests.
]
We’ll walk over. (No; that dog won’t bite.) Some station, isn’t it? Just
built this Spring. Thousands of people visit Edaville every week; I
guess lots of them hurry right by Plymouth Rock to come over here.
That’s why Mr. Atwood decided he needed a passenger station.
Yes, it’s quite a place; besides the usual station fixtures it has a
real Fred Harveyish kind of restaurant, a museum, waiting-room, and
social hall besides. That’s where they get together for club meetings,
speeches when some speechster is here, yarn-swapping, and to look at all
the interesting railroad relics and pictures on display there. There’ll
be some barracks upstairs someday, where visitors may bed down for a
night or two.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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