International Railway of Maine - World Wars

World Wars

During World War I, the CPR line became infamous for being the sabotage target of a German army officer. The United States was still a neutral country at that point and CPR was not permitted to transport war material and troops across US soil on the way to Saint John; most war goods for Canada's war effort were transported entirely in Canada on the government-owned Intercolonial Railway route instead. However Imperial Germany was convinced that CPR's route across Maine was being used for the war effort and sought to destroy the Saint Croix-Vanceboro Railway Bridge over the St. Croix River between Vanceboro, Maine and St. Croix, New Brunswick. The officer travelled to Vanceboro on a Maine Central passenger train and stayed several nights in the local hotel, then laid explosives which detonated but did not destroy the bridge. He was arrested and then jailed by the United States before eventually being extradited and jailed in Canada.

A year after the armistice, 23 died in an Onawa train wreck when a freight train collided head on with the third of four passenger trains carrying immigrants recently arrived on a liner from Europe. The crew of the 26-car freight train became confused about the number of trains required to carry all the passengers. All were operating as sections of a single regularly scheduled passenger train, but the last was 8 hours late.