One day in 1959, I was driving by Santa Fe’s main line tracks in Buena Park, California, and noticed a small wooden station there. I drove by there a couple of months later, and the station was gone. This started me thinking; “Hmm, these things seem to be vanishing just like steam locomotives did.”
Several years ago, I lost patience waiting around for a train to photograph and started to pay more attention to the landscape that the tracks run through. I became absorbed in the things that surround the railroad, and that the railroad alters and defines as it passes through. So absorbed, in fact, that trains occasionally rumbled by un-photographed.
Our tribute to the Maine Central and the railroaders who made The Pine Tree Route what it was.”
This is a story about a railroad, a song, a songwriter, a singer, a photographer, and a Maine Central Railroad veteran. And it’s about how people with common interests, located thousands of miles apart, connected, collaborated, and created a musical tribute to the Maine Central Railroad, The Pine Tree Route.