NORWAY – The Norway Branch Line Railroad Co. is missing some stockholders.

The corporation started with 60 investors who purchased 350 shares in 1870.

Now, the corporation can only account for four stockholders and 204 shares of stock.

And one of the stockholders, Alice Tubbs, said she gave her stock to the town years ago.

There is not a complete record of how the stock was bequeathed. All the corporation has is a list of original stockholders and just a couple of the transfers.

According to NBLRC figures, the town of Norway owns 200 shares. Three Norway residents own shares: Madeline Phillips, owns two shares and Larry Todd and Alice Tubbs, own one share each.

Dennis Gray, president of the NBLRC, is bothered by the thought that the state would get the value of the unclaimed shares, should the corporation be dissolved.

“This is part of the reason we never liquidated it,” Gray said about the corporation. “My contention is that the corporation was created to benefit the economy of the town of Norway.”

Gray said based solely on the approximate $59,000 the corporation has in the bank, each share is worth about $168.

The corporation has more worth. According to NBLRC clerk Debbie Wyman, it loaned $30,000 to the town of Norway at a 3 percent interest rate in 1997 to encourage business growth at the incubator building on Aldrich Avenue.

Tenant Northeast Tool & Die expanded and assumed the loan. It now owes about $7,000 to on the remainder of that loan, according to Wyman.

Other income includes lease fees from Bessey Motor Sales and Shaner’s Family Restaurant. Part of the land those businesses are on is owned by the NBLRC. The St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad also pays a yearly fee of $225 to use a little more than a half mile of track.

Bessey Motors pays the corporation $250 a year for 1,800 square feet and Shaner’s pays $500 a year for 26,400 square feet.

The originators of the NBLRC raised $12,250, to purchase the right of way and lay a couple miles of track. This added a spur to the main line that better served the town.

The corporation was chartered by the Maine Legislature in 1870.

The main line to the area was already in place and owned by the Grand Trunk Railroad, which was later purchased by the St. Lawrence & Atlantic Railroad.

The Norway Branch Line Railroad Co. signed a 99-year lease with GTRR.

The rail service was busy until the mid-1900s. Goods were transported and there was a passenger service.

“It was a huge decision to end passenger service,” Gray said. “It stopped in the ’50s, maybe the ’60s.”

Then the right of way was owned by St. Lawrence & Atlantic RR. Through the years it has been cutting back on the amount of track it leased.

The ownership of the right of way eventually went back to NBLRC.

Currently Gray and Mike Noble are the only directors on a board, which is supposed to have three directors.

A meeting is scheduled for Feb. 17 to elect another board member.

The only paid employee of the corporation is the clerk, who can be paid $100 per year. Wyman, the current clerk, said she has not taken any pay in years for taking care of the corporation business.

Wyman hopes some of the missing stockholders will come forward.

“All they have to do is prove that they are descendants and that the property was willed to them,” Wyman said.

jsmedley@sunjournal.com

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