CARRABASSETT VALLEY — Author Guy Rioux will give a talk on his latest book, “The Franklin County Narrow Gauges: The Next Stop is Kingfield” at the Carrabassett Valley Public Library & Community Center on Saturday, Dec 3.

The talk will be held in the Begin Room at 4:30 p.m. 

The book, published this summer, details the history of the narrow gauge railroad in the Salem, Kingfield, Carrabassett and Bigelow Station area and includes much history of that area. The book is part of a four-book series, “The Franklin County Narrow Gauges,” published by Dan Rand Publishing.

Franklin County narrow gauge railroad expert and author Guy Rioux became interested in Maine’s unique narrow gauge railroads after volunteering at the Maine Narrow Gauge Museum in Portland in 1994. It was not until around 1995 that he read his first book on the subject, Linwood Moody’s epic tale, “The Maine Two-Footers: The Story of the Two-Foot Gauge Railroads of Maine.” After reading additional books on the subject, he began to have questions but found no answers.

This came to a head with a 1999 field trip to Redington, the main reason the Phillips & Rangeley Railroad was built in the first place. Afterward, he began gathering information up and down the East Coast on the Franklin County narrow gauges.

Rioux discovered new and valuable sources which previously were unknown or just not used, and which he extensively researched and verified. That included a great number of local Maine newspapers and news reports from outside of Maine. Each book also contains many old pictures and maps with detailed and valuable explanations.

For those unfamiliar with the series, the author uses over 1,000 quotes per book to provide a firsthand account of events as they happened, no filters, no editing — the reader sees the text as it was reported when it happened. 


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