Maine Line Magazine Archive

This archive of Bangor and Aroostook Railroad Maine Line Magazines is dedicated to all of the employees of the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad.
A special dedication goes to the late Richard W. Sprague, Vice President of Public Relations, for editing and overseeing the Maine Line Magazines. He was involved, literally, from the first issue to the last.

The complexity of a project in making the Bangor and Aroostook Maine Lines digitally available to the public involved many dedicated people that deserved to be mentioned.

We (Judi and Rod Bushway) undertook this project as a tribute to Rod’s Father, Alfred “Ike” Bushway, a sheet metal worker at the Derby Shops who retired in 1982. (See Spring 1982 pages 10 & 11) Judi devoted many hours from January to October 2023 to completing the initial scans at the University of Maine, Fogler Library, Special Collections.

The Maine Line Magazines came primarily from two locations, the University of Maine Special Collections and the Oakfield Historical Society (OHS), which is located in the B and A Railroad Station in Oakfield, ME. We were still missing 9 issues which were provided by Joey Kelley and The BAR Archives.

We would like to thank the staff at Special Collections, Desiree Butterfield-Nagy, Paul Smitherman and Elaine Smith. Thank you for putting up with us all those months. Without your help this project would not have been completed.

Our contact at the OHS was Alberta McDonald, (President), who let us borrow their Maine Lines to be scanned. We thank the OHS for their dedication in keeping the old B and A Railroad Station active and open to the public for anyone to view the B and A artifacts.

After all the scanning was completed, Joey Kelley ran all the front covers through Adobe Photoshop for a clear and cleaner view.

Adam Fisher from the Maine State Library took on the daunting task of making each PDF file searchable. This makes the collection much more valuable as a resource for research and we thank him for his work. In addition, the Maine State Library seems to be the only place that has a complete collection of the newsprint issues, which Adam digitized and made searchable.

Please enjoy this priceless archive of Maine's railroading history, now preserved for generations to come! -Judi and Rod Bushway

Volume	First Issue	Notes
1	November - December 1952	The Very First Maine Lines!
2	November - December 1953
3	November - December 1954
4	November - December 1955
5	November - December 1956
6	November - December 1957	Five issues produced - in magazine format, one produced in Newsprint
7	November - December 1958	Issue number 4 - May June 1959 was skipped as an 'economy measure'. The November December 1959 issue, which would normally have started volume 8 - was instead listed by the railroad as Volume 7, Issue 7. Although the reason is unknown, speculation is that this was simply an oversight.
8	January - February 1960	See above note about Volume 7 - Volume 8 starts with Issue 2 - January February 1960 - contains only five issues as a result
9	November - December 1960	Volume 9 - Issue 2 - January - February 1961 was the last issue produced in the small 4 by 6 inch format - Issues 3-5 are printed in a newspaper format
10	November - December 1961	This entire volume of the Maine Line produced on newsprint - volume appears courtesy of the Maine State Library
11	January - February 1963	First issue produced in Newspaper format, remaining issues began the 8.5 by 11 inch format that would continue until the last issue in 1990. Issues 4 and 5 were combined as the 'Fall 1963' issue
12	January - February 1964
13	January - February 1965	Only five issues produced: July - August 1965 was skipped
14	January - February 1966	B&A's 75th anniversary year - the Diamond Jubilee logo appears on the cover of each issue for 1966
15	January - February 1967
16	January - February 1968
17	January - February 1969
18	January - February 1970
19	January - February 1971
20	January - February 1972	Only five issues produced - Issue 4 listed as July-August-September - Issue 5 is listed as October-November. December is never mentioned
21	January - February 1973	Issue 6 - December-January-February goes into 1974, the cover says January-February 1974, but the internal volume information includes December
22	March - April 1974	Only three issues produced - March-April - Fall and November-December
23	January-February-March 1975	Only four issues produced - Number 4 is listed as Winter - 1975-1976
24	Spring 1976	Only three issues produced - Spring - Summer - Fall
25	January-February-March 1977	Four issues Produced - Issue 4 is listed as Winter of 1977-1978
26	Spring 1978	Four issues produced - although Summer 1978 is only four pages - the fourth is Spring 1979
27	Summer 1979	Four issues produced - the fourth is Summer 1980
28	Fall 1980	Four issues produced
29	Spring 1982	Only two issues produced - An error on the Summer 1982 issue lists the Volume as 20
30	Spring 1983	Three issues produced - Summer of 1983 introduced the new style of cover, a photo centered in a color frame on a different colored background
31	Spring 1984	Four issues Produced
32	March 1985	Three issues produced
33	April 1986	Two issues Produced - April and October
34	April 1987	Two issues produced - April and Fall
35	Spring 1988	Two issues produced - Spring and Fall - the Spring volume number is listed as 33, an error
36	Spring 1990	Only Two Issues - Spring and Fall 1990 - last issues produced by the Bangor and Aroostook Railroad