THE OLD SOMERSET RAILROAD by Walter M. Macdougall, Down East Books, 192 pages, $19.95.

Whether you’re an old-time Mainer or a newcomer, you’ll enjoy the nostalgic narrative of “The Old Somerset Railroad” by Walter M. Macdougall.

The railroad, which started in 1872, was planned to run from Oakland to Quebec. While it never reached that far north, it became the main way for tourists to get to Moosehead Lake while serving area farmers and loggers.

Macdougall, a retired professor who lives in Milo, shares his love of railroads, readily visible in his easy narrative style, as he tells the story of the road that was swallowed up by the Maine Central.

“The Somerset trains brought the forest down to the mills and hauled away the wood products. For the farmer and the canning companies, they opened new markets. Twice they carried young men off to war. Once, in World War II, after the Somerset had become a branch of the Maine Central, the rails carried German POWs to a work camp in the woods. The trains brought the circus, the mail, the drummers, and the sundry items that the hardware proprietor had promised were ‘on the iron.’ They took throngs of people on a day’s outing and carried thousands of vacationers to resorts and sporting camps.”

The author richly describes the early days of the line, describing for us such things as the ball signal that indicated when the track was clear for trains heading north. It was a metal ball attached to a rope, Macdougall tells us, and it was raised or lowered on a mast. “With the ball at masthead – a ‘high ball’ in railroad vernacular – trains pulled out of Oakland Yard and made a run for the grade up Otis Hill.”

He writes of the railroad reaching Bingham in 1890 after a court fight, with the last spike driven, the Revere bell in the church ringing, a boom from the town’s cannon echoing, and “Into all this excitement came the ‘Carrabassett’ with her cabbage stack and whale-oil headlamp big as a cyclop’s eye.”

Early on, he describes the progress of the line from town to town and the people that made it possible. At times he is positively lyrical as he weaves nostalgic pictures into the prose:

“On any evening, be it in the soft after-warmth of a summer day or in the blue shadows of winter drifts, the ruby red and the yellow green of switch lanterns marked the railway’s single track north through the villages and farms of the upper Kennebec. From Bingham on, the lanterns glowed between the dark walls of the woods. Perhaps never again will travel be more convenient, mails more regular, or transportation more efficient.”

The engines and rolling stock of the railroad are described in word and photograph – the book contains more than 80 pictures of the vintage railroading.

But the book isn’t just a description of rails and trains. Macdougall puts the Somerset in perspective with chapters such as “Life in Them Good Old Days,” recounting such engine-house tales as “The Skowhegan Ghost” and the many stories of cows on the tracks, including one time when the old “Bombazeen” was tipped over by a cow.

There are tales about the bridges and stories about the train depots and their stationmasters. He also writes of the ghost light at Bakers, and the odd sounds at Moxie (which turned out to be a batch of large frogs in a large milk can, headed for “the big hotel at Kineo”). Frogs legs on the menu?

Besides the vivid description of the trains and people north of Bingham – the “wilderness” – there is a splendid section on winter railroading.

One appendix describes the engine names and their distinctive qualities – such as the cabbage stack which “flared out like a funnel.” Macdougall tells us that the engine names “belonged to the proud Indian heritage of the valley.” Such names as Caratunk, Norridgewock, Carrabassett, Bombazeen and Messalonskee.

The easy writing brought back memories of riding the train from Oakland one summer as a youngster and gave me an insight into what railroad life must have been like for my grandfather, who was an engineer with the Bangor & Aroostook and the Canadian Pacific.

The book, however, will appeal to anyone with an interest in what life was like in those times from the 1890s to World War II and in the nostalgic history of how that rail line came about – and what it meant to the people along its rail bed.