Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad - Receivership

Receivership

The receivers took control on 8 July 1923 and discontinued freight service north of Perham Junction on the former P&R from 24 November 1923 until 1 June 1924, but passenger train service was continued over the entire system through that winter. For the next five years, winter freight and passenger service on the former P&R north of Phillips was discontinued from December through May. The former F&M remained in service for receiver Wing's mill in Kingfield, and for a Carrabasset wood veneer mill built by the Lawrence Plywood Company in 1924. The veneer mill used surplus World War I tanks to haul logs out of the woods.

The Phillips shop built internal combustion railcars numbered 3 and 4 in the spring of 1925. These passenger rail motors substituted for steam passenger trains during the summer months until October when snow and ice removal required daily operation of steam locomotives with pony plows. Railcar number 5 was built during the winter of 1926-27.

Rails were removed from the 1.9-mile (3-km) Mount Abram Branch to Soule's Mill in November 1924 and from the northern 4.4 miles (7 kilometers) of the former K&DR from Carrabasset to Bigelow in the summer of 1926. In 1927, rails were removed from the P&R extension formerly serving the Rangeley Lake House hotel.

In 1928 Oxford Paper Company began shipping pulpwood from Barnjum to their mill in Rumford Falls. The receivers operated extra winter trains to Barnjum, and were encouraged to resume full year service over the former P&R commencing 20 May 1929. The last steam train left Rangeley in May 1931 and railcar service over the former P&R north of Phillips ended in the autumn of 1931. Following a precedent set three years earlier on the Kennebec Central Railroad, Maxey suspended all train and railcar service when the last mills shipping their products via the SR&RL transferred their business to highway trucking firms. Two SR&RL highway trucks began carrying express shipments on 8 July 1932, and no trains operated over any part of the railroad through the following winter.