Timetable - April 19, 1945

A routing change between January and April and a small addition on the bus side of things seem to be the major changes between this timetable and the last. Trains 3 and 4 are no longer following the Aroostook Flyer and Potatoland Special's route via Houlton coming up what one could describe as the East route on the way to Presque Isle, Caribou and Fort Kent. Now, Trains 3 and 4 are going up the West side of the loop in Northern Maine - via Ashland and coming into Fort Kent before going on to St. Francis.  The line divided at Oakfield, the original main line to Houlton breaking to the East and the other line going more Northwest out of Oakfield. This routing is the more familiar to the modern B&A enthusiast as today, that is the only portion of the 'big loop' which remains intact and unaltered. On the one hand, it is somewhat appropriate to offer good service to all the lines which one operates on and with three trains per day to and from Caribou, one wonders how many passengers were actually on each train. Further, with wartime freight traffic, six passenger trains on the same line every 24 hours (six days a week) must have made the dispatcher's job a bit difficult at times. All these things considered, sending 3 and 4 up the westerly route makes a lot of sense. Since the mixed train from Squa Pan to Van Buren and the passenger train from Fort Kent to St. Francis were left in place, this also had the effect of increasing the level of passenger service along the western route. 
The other change appears in the bus service area - effective May 1, buses would begin to offer a single round trip between Patten and Island Falls. Oddly enough, this is a return to the Patten - Sherman - Island Falls service that was offered previously. The interesting part is that the Patten - Sherman section section is contained within the railroad side of the timetable and the Patten to Island Falls section is contained in the bus timetable. Obviously there is a reason for this, but, since it appears this was done with the same bus and driver (based upon arrival and departure times) why the service is presented in this fashion, frankly, boggles the mind of your editor.

Bangor Historical Society Collection