Maine's world-class model railroad

By Ted Cohen/Patch.com

If you have trouble understanding why guys like to build train sets in their basements, you'll need a psychiatrist after this one.

The town that claimed as summer residents two presidents (two George Bushes) now has a 3,000-foot track in a new $3.2 million building.

The Seashore Trolley Museum in Kennebunkport just opened the massive, hard-to-fathom display to year-round train fanatics.

The track of the Maine Central Model Railroad passes through towns modeled on real Maine places, mines and mills, lobster boats and lighthouses, cities and villages.

Harold Beal and his wife of Jonesport built the HO-model railroad that depicts the Maine Central Railroad from the mid-1900s.

“For decades, the couple opened their home to guests from all over the world” to gawk at the mass of scale tracks, trains and buildings.

Beal’s widow donated the huge creation to the museum, which then had to figure out where to put it.

That's where the new $3.2 million building came in. But the railroad display had to be stored while the structure was being put up.

The layout was disassembled in 2022 in Jonesport and trucked to climate-controlled storage units in Kennebunk by Stephan Lamb Associates, a professional model-railroad layout moving company.

And that, folks, is what you call a big train set.

Contributor: Saco Bay News