Train Station

Over the 4th of July weekend, Steve and I went to Maine with our friends Dan & Kimberly. We did a lot of cool stuff while we were there, including visits to Acadia National Park and downtown Bar Harbor. One of things we had the opportunity to do while there was to go to an old train station in Oakfield (Kimberly's grandmother was volunteering at the museum housed in said old train station).

Now it's time for a secret: I've always had a thing for checking out old things and seeing the way things used to be. I've often wondered what things were like in other times. What was it like to live in an old castle? What was it like to live during segregation? What was it like to be one of those people who travelled around the country in covered wagons? Things like that. The time travel of the movie Titanic is what I always found so fascinating about it when it first came out. Going to a place where things are pretty close to what they looked like 50-100 years ago is kind of like time travel, and it's one of those things that I secretly really enjoy.

While Kimberly & Dan were chatting with family and Steve was trying to get an old typewriter in the train office to work, I walked around with our camera and took some pictures. I tried very hard to make sure I didn't get much - if any - modernization; the cars in the parking lot or the houses around the old train station for example. Apparently the tracks are still in use while the station serves merely as an old museum, displaying the history of the Bangor & Aroostook Railroad, but no trains came while we were there.







This sign fascinated me. Apparently, the women and men were separated while they were waiting for their trains. I can only imagine what that must have been like, to arrive at the train station with your husband only to have him disappear in what I picture to be a cloud of cigar smoke and jovial laughter.



At any rate, if any of you are ever in the market for someone to go with you on a brief jaunt back into history - let me know. Museums, a historical homestead, any of that... the way things used to be is something that has always fascinated me and I'd be more than likely be willing to tag along.