Massive Railroad 1,500' Trestle Deep In The Forest Of Maine 90 Yrs Abandoned

hey everyone today we're here at the locomotives in the middle of the woods of maine but we're not here to see them i'm gonna show you guys some stuff nobody ever shows this railway line goes for six miles about four miles or so maybe five there's a massive trestle that's over a thousand feet long there's no trail going there it's gonna be a treacherous bushwhacking adventure let's get moving all right at this point the track now becomes abandoned we're not on the official trail now and we're gonna travel like five miles down there but we're not going to walk on this part we're it's very muddy we're going to follow the real trail for a minute if you're somebody who's a rail fan i think you'll find this very interesting this is the best place to start walking the tracks as soon as the trail starts to go back in the woods leading to the parking lot right here is the most simple way in it's about a two hour bushwhack just to get there but i'm filming this i've already done it but i didn't have an intro i start my adventure down here which is also a way to do it but not as easy right here in a flooded out area you can see where the drainage ditches would have been this elevated place would have been the tracks but back then they weren't built up on gravel so that's why it's in such bad condition they didn't have gravel out here they didn't have a way of crushing stuff that easily so they just built it on dirt and it worked but the tracks just didn't last that long this place would be miserable in the summertime but now because of the mosquitoes you can start to see the edges now where they flattened out this area is starting to get nice we came across our first piece of remnants looks like part of an old steam shovel beautiful how it's covered in that moss believe it or not the moss will actually help preserve it because the moss prevents it from going through dramatic dramatic changes in temperature fluctuations it basically keeps the thing wet and cool all the time because if it was hot to cool hot cool every day it would rust away faster [Applause] take a look at this old rail car completely dilapidated see that you can still see the rail and now that i got out of the blow down area you can see there's quite a few of them parked out here and right here where you see the water trickling it's actually meant to be here this is a drainage area probably would have been a culvert right there at the bottom but not anymore so we have this track and we have another track right here that leads into it and look at all these abandoned cars down here dozens more so if you follow this down this eventually turns into the trail but they have it cutting off now i'm gonna walk down this way a bit as the railway is going through a swamp now this is one of the most treacherous areas see you have this line the main line and this one you have all three of these tracks coming together i've never seen two switches that close before trying to get in here to see them chances are the switches are buried under all this stuff can't even walk on these tracks it's easier to walk off to the edge yep we got a swamp here you never know you might even find a culvert or a bridge i'm not worried about ticks in this area i've been traipsing through all of this stuff for days don't find any ticks for some reason much easier walking down here then up on the track for the time being while there's a big blow down i think this open area you're seeing has been created by moose traffic does that show up on camera there's these birds out here when they're drying off their feathers they make a pulsing sound and it can kind of sound like something's running towards you for a few seconds until you realize what it is i'm making my way back up to the track there's the switch i was right it's underneath the blow down this area of the tracks is in great condition no washouts nothing of the kind just tons of trees you gotta walk over and under beautiful grassland like this one here got a crawl underneath it i knew we would eventually come across something like this our first bridge i can hear it but i think it's washed out got this nice area in here see a lot of moose tracks but now i'm walking along these tracks ducking under everything and yes the bridge is gone look at that it's just rails stretching this i bet it was an old wood timber bridge and it's gone it rotted away that's my conclusion i don't even think it rotted washed out it during the winter thaw this water probably gets high this pond is created by a beaver dam built here i don't see anything new i don't see a beaver lodge i think they abandoned the area for the time being it's a beautiful little brook coming in here see all that grass the moose love to eat that bet there's a lot of them in the spring and look at that i've never seen a railroad spike at this railroad they look pretty normal to me the head might be a little smaller than a modern one but this place is abandoned that's why it's still intact none of it's been stolen get a big fine if you get caught stealing anything out here from this historic railway now i'm going to make my way slowly through the washout climbing underneath this rail that reels really strong too we got a date 1886 so it appears they were using reused rail for the logging because these tracks were installed in the late 20s continuing getting my way up out of the washout this area is so dense can't walk on the tracks anymore ouch i'm being forced into the swamp to avoid that area and i can see by the evidence during the heavy rainstorm a few days ago trying to get back up there it's just not letting me it's so overgrown i honestly think i'm the first person to walk on this track in many years such a pain still trying to get back onto the tracks but it's too overgrown there's another washed out area as you can see here and i'm going through there this area is too overgrown maybe i can walk on the other side in the pushed over grass being forced into the swamp [Applause] definitely a great grazing area i'm hoping when i get back down here to the end of the swamp i'll be allowed to get back onto the tracks they're just too overgrown too many trees now this area might have ticks in the summer but the thing you got to keep in mind ticks like high grass they don't like little trees but this area doesn't seem to have them all together right here looks like it washed out a bit when the water was extremely high to get up there now you can see in front of me there's a trail starting to form together and that's the way i'm going to take moose routes are usually pretty good trails moose are good at finding the best way to get around through the woods [Applause] the moose trail seems to veer off into the swamp but i see clearing i can get back onto the railroad well for the moment of course there's another blow down making this probably the most difficult hike i've ever done i've never bushed whacked an area this bad this is because it's a swamp and pine trees are weak so they fall over especially on this unnatural ground it's unnatural because the train company built this hump and it's not suited to hold the trees up apparently although most of them are not even uprooted they're just broken probably carpenter ants now we're getting pretty open a decent trail until the next blow down i see here's a washed out area that seems to have a lot of flow and those logs look pretty uniform those may have been put there by the train company and by being in constant wet conditions it kind of preserved them there might be creosote added but that's the reason why you don't see any railroad ties they didn't use creosote on this project they use just logs that they found here you think they're gonna bring all that lumber out here well they could after all they brought all the rail out here but that's one extra thing they didn't have to do they used the trees they cleared as the ties train has not been down here in nearly 90 years now right here you can see where the train ties used to be as they left small depressions as they rotted away now we're getting into a very open area this place is six miles long and today we're walking approximately four miles of it and those train cars are an area probably no one ever goes to i've never seen anyone take pictures of them maybe in the summertime no not the summer time too many mosquitoes next year we'll probably try to do the whole six miles but that's like an all-day hike it's not easy moving 12 miles in a day when you're constantly having to go over everything this area here is in pretty good condition back there's a swamp right here it's more stable not as many fallen trees and back there in the open area the wind can also catch the trees easier all right here we go probably it used to be another bridge here what's it look like that may be rotten pieces of wood holding it together i don't think it was a culvert no that was made of wood okay we have a piece of rail here which is bent on the end imagine the machine used to bend that i think that was here to stop runaway cars possibly now this is a fantastic area of trail looks like something you'd see in a postcard all this nice moss none of the trees actually in the track beautiful walking trail getting messy again as we start to enter another swamp we're back to this again hundreds of trees down entering yet again another marsh and we've come upon another very miserable to walk area and just see how these trees came down perfectly together lined up parallel they all came down together like dominoes i was temporarily forced into the swamp again the drainage ditch is still working in this section of the track wonder where all that water is leading probably gonna find another washout up here carpenter ants woodpeckers are eating i was right another washed out area i don't even know if i would call this one a washout because it's basically just the bridge has rotted away this area has more substantial growth as far as trees in the middle of the tracks got some telegraph wire right here mother nature reopened the drainage ditch so [Applause] another decent area of track we've been walking now for over an hour look at that part of the forest it looks like night time in there it's so dense there's two trees out here that are so big i wouldn't be surprised if those actually saw the trains but that would be amazing that they didn't cut them down and another small overpass which this one's not even rotten you see you got the big timbers here and they just simply let it flow through here the train was able to span that couple foot distance without bending the rail all right we've reached where the big truffle used to be it was made out of wood completely rotted away so now the rails remain just sitting on the ground all crumpled when the bridge collapsed the rails still remain down here buried beneath all this but there's no sign of the bridge i just want to make my way to the end of these trees still see the rail in there whole area smells like manure lots of moose right here the rails standing on top of one of them and there must be some of the pillars right those have got to be pillars and not trees oh yep those are pillars all right [Applause] plow my way through all this and this is as far as possible you're allowed to follow it because i don't have a kayak look at that the rail goes right into the water those are the remaining supports of the trestle oh that was interesting now to get the bigger picture of this how big this trestle really was over there is a really high platform and it would have been raised all the way up here all the way across over there into the woods down there there's a few more miles and i bet if this train company stayed open they would have expanded everywhere maybe would have even had trains out here now instead of trucks they're definitely better at moving stuff but the upfront price then they're never going to come back look at all those rotten supports sticking out of the water and in the middle there's a stone barrier maybe that was something to let boats through so i see some metal pieces sticking up probably not especially back then there's no boats out here the nearest building is like a hundred miles away definitely was a massive trouser by the looks of it over a thousand feet now it's a treacherous five mile or so walk back in the other direction so this is what you find if you walk on the overgrown abandoned train tracks from the eagle lake locomotives the trail brings you only to the locomotives and train station there's no trail coming out to this place you simply have to do this bushwhack for miles and miles and it's not easy bushwacking through this stuff and we're back to some of the supports in here as you can see they did not even use creosote on this stuff or that would have still been here i've seen stuff in the 1800s with creosote which is still very recognizable you see here these are all the pillars those are not trees that's what would hold up the trestle you can still see the rail laying down in there and it would have gone all the way up onto that platform here we are back on top of the platform looking out and now got a two hour journey back walking over all this garbage once again i guess i missed that on the way in some wheels at least most of these drainage ditches are still working look at us those logs still being preserved there's a bunch of trees in the way it's going to clog up soon but 90 years without maintenance it's still flowing and there's basically no oh wow you saw that right for a minute i thought i was like dizzy and about to fall over but no the ground there is lifting up and down as the wind is blowing this tree that's gonna uproot pretty soon that is so cool it feels so weird standing on that when the wind blows because it's swaying up and down took me about three hours to make my way out to that trestle so i'm expecting like a six hour trip but i'll probably get back faster since i know what areas of the track i have to get on and off at to avoid the blowdowns that's pretty cool there all washed away now this is where i need to get back hopefully it's not too deep here made it back now this is the part of the overgrown track you're forced to go through it's either waste deep water or trampling through this have to climb over that that's one good chunk of moose food look at that we're coming back to our first major washout which is right here i actually forget how i got across this don't know if i went way down or not but i'm gonna walk through here oh yeah this is the way i came i remember now so there must have been a wood bridge here at one point wow the wind is whipping wouldn't be surprised if i actually see a few trees come down so that's where we walked in from that line right there if you follow it that turns into the trail the trail turns off it to go to the locomotives we came in this way and now we're going to come back this way and this is going to lead us straight there the locomotive is sitting on this track but in the meantime we're right next to dozens of abandoned freight cars just consumed by the forest and rotted away if anyone decides to do this trail for themselves this is something you got to watch out for these ones are pretty obvious in the open but there are telegraph lines everywhere that are like above the ground and you trip over them all the time you see that there's still some snow down there hidden away between the cars as the sun doesn't reach this area well so much for that siding not even a siding it's technically a branch line see as it comes down here and this is the dead end it's over technically for a siding it would have to come back in this area is too swampy i'm back up top on the trail the moose made there's way too much water at the moment look at that there the rails are literally under the water okay this is pretty interesting right here you can see the rails and then they're completely buried in mud there was a mudslide here slowly occurring over the years from this little trickling stream washing all this mud and embankment that the railroad built back down where nature once had it in this section of the tracks almost every tie is intact and that's because they're surrounded by mud very little oxygen so they have trouble decomposing in this area i gotta say if it wasn't for the fallen trees this would make an awesome hiking trail but the fact is it took me about five hours or so to get to that train truffle and back they should make this into a hiking trail because like 10 minutes up we're about to hit the hiking trail that leads to the locomotives down there you can never have a hiking trail it's too muddy but look at this right here this could go quite a ways and when they get to the marshy area the train track is perfectly dry i just had to walk in the water because there's so many trees knocked over that would make quite a nice trail if they would open it up got more telegraph lines major tripping hazard out here and here we are reconnecting with the actual hiking trail this time of year april you're lucky if you see one person even using the trail each day whole place is abandoned i drove up here hours on dirt roads did not pass one other vehicle it's mud season logging is not really happening right now they're cutting down trees and stacking them by the roads but not too many big trucks roads are just too soft but on a normal summer you'll have to pull over for a truck every five or ten minutes on the main arteries last summer i only saw two logging trucks which is amazing usually you'd see at least 50 or so on a trip out here i think it's because coronavirus is stopping logging for some weird reason which makes no sense because logging it's not like you're around a lot of people you're in machines cutting down trees and logging and putting them into logging trucks and that's why lumber is now at over 300 percent if you go into a lumber yard or the local hardware store and that doesn't make sense because it's not like they're around people even the companies who do the pressure treating for that kind of lumber it's not like it's a packed place hopefully they open back up to get those timber prices back down this forest the majority of it is not a lumber forest it's pulp wood so they grow the trees and they cut them down mostly being small they don't let them get the full size they're not logging stuff like white pine which is mainly what you use for lumber they're logging these kind of trees i can't think of the name basically big overgrown christmas trees and we're back on the track again this area of the track is very dry as we start to approach the locomotives the main attraction up here this trail was only built a couple years ago before you had the bushwhack all the way out here from the parking lot the parking lot back there's also brand new the old parking lot was a much further bushwhacking hike you can't get to the old parking lot anymore unless you have like a vehicle built like a tank because there's trees in the middle of the road that are four feet tall now that have been allowed to grow because no one goes there anymore with the new parking lot and right here is an old boiler that could have been a small steam train possibly a logging donkey there's another wheelbase off to the left that i think was from a small helper engine or more likely a maintenance vehicle that is literally asphalt why this area not being very wet to all the ties that aren't treated they're completely rotted away and now they just have a bunch of metal braces that the train company used especially around switches so it wouldn't spread apart with the train going over it so they knew some of the ties may have been weak or the spikes may have come out of place that's why modern railways use spikes on straightaways and they use large rigid screws around corners and near switches and we're going to end the video here at the locomotives this is the end of the line nothing is going in the other direction you hit water i have a full video in detail showing these two locomotives and also their tram system here which runs on these miniature tracks a half a mile that would drag logs out of eagle lake and into chamberlain lake actually i think it was the other way around they use the bodies of water for floating logs since the rivers flow in the wrong direction there's obviously culverts out of service here that's why that big flood is forming there's two branch lines here with dozens of cars these ones are pretty dilapidated like i showed earlier in the video further down there like a couple miles but down there there's a few that are actually in decent shape they actually have the walls hope this video was interesting thanks for watching

Channel: post 10

Views: 1,437,483

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Id: GnYnDREi-Z4

Length: 37min 23sec (2243 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021