In August, 1868 -- more than 120 years before any of these three young trackmen were born -- the B&ML's first rails were laid in its main yard in Belfast, Maine, by workers from the Canadian based construction firm, Ellis, Wilson, and Hogan Co., the main contractor engaged to build the road. The names of the men who did that job are long forgotten of course, but now -- 137 years later -- it has fallen to Rick Benner (left) of Belfast, Casey Leach (center) of Morrill, and Mack Page, Jr. (right) of Belfast, to help pull up that same yard's rails and switches over which countless thousands of trains have since rolled as each one began yet another 33 mile run across Mid-Coast Maine's Waldo County to Burnham Junction where the B&ML's tracks join those of the Maine Central. This sanguine final task has at least been kept in the railroad's own family, however. In doing this sad duty, young Mack Page, Jr., became the fifth generation of the Page family to have worked on the B&ML's rails...and Rick Benner represents the sixth!

Photographed by Bruce C. Cooper (DigitalImageServices.com), July 11, 2005.
Added to the photo archive by Bruce Cooper, July 11, 2005.
Railroad: Belfast & Moosehead Lake.

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