“REPORT FALSE OF ABANDONMENT OF BELFAST BRANCH”
On May 28, 1925, The REPUBLICAN JOURNAL, Belfast’s weekly newspaper, carried under the above headline the following brief item:
“That the Maine Central Railroad is contemplating abandoning the Belfast-Burnham branch to its owners, as was reported in a Portland paper last week, was proven absolutely false today, when at The Journal's request Mayor O. E. Frost of this city got in touch with President McDonald of the Maine Central.However Mr. McDonald’s denials that “no such action was even under consideration” soon proved to be just empty words. Less than a week later McDonald sent Mayor Frost -- who was also the B&ML’s unpaid President -- an accounting showing a net loss to the MEC on their Belfast Branch operations of $113,230 for the year 1924. Less than a month later the end of the MEC Belfast Branch was official -- on June 30th McDonald notified the B&ML that the MEC would end its lease effective December 31, 1925.“In response to Mr. Frost's question Mr. McDonald stated that no such action was even under consideration. He said that if the time should ever come when the Maine Central desires to make a change with respect to the Belfast Branch, the officers of the Belfast and Moosehead Lake Railroad Company, which owns the branch, would be notified personally and not through the medium of the daily press and that dealings would be made with them direct, in a business like manner as is customary in all commercial transactions.”
Courtesy Bruce C. Cooper Collection.