Flying Yankee at Portland, ME Union Station 1937 Poster

Flying Yankee as Train 15 at Union Station in Portland, Maine, August 16, 1937; photo by Otto Perry. The Flying Yankee was a diesel-powered streamliner built in 1935 for the Maine Central Railroad and the Boston and Maine Railroad by Budd Company and with mechanical and electrical equipment from Electro-Motive Corporation. It was the third streamliner train in North America. The train was delivered in February 1935, and toured the BM-MEC railroad system before entering service on April 1. The daily route served began in Portland, Maine, then to Boston, Massachusetts, followed by a return to Portland and continuing to Bangor, Maine, returning through Portland to Boston and finally returning to Portland late in the day, a distance of 750 miles per day. This schedule was kept six days a week; the trainset spent Sundays undergoing maintenance. Later on, as newer equipment replaced it on one route, it would be switched to other routes, bearing the names The Cheshire, The Minuteman, The Mountaineer , and The Business Man. As railroad passenger ridership declined in the 1950s the Yankee was also getting old, and thus the trainset, as The Minuteman, was retired, running its last on May 7, 1957. The railroad donated the trainset to the Edaville Railroad tourist/museum operation in Carver, Massachusetts. The train remained on static display there until it was moved in the early 1990s to Glen, New Hampshire after being purchased by the late Bob Morrell, former owner of Story Land. The train was moved to Lincoln, New Hampshire, on August 10, 2005, to the Hobo Railroad where the mechanical restoration is taking place. Union Station on St John Street was commissioned by the Maine Central Railroad, and shared jointly with the Boston and Maine, and Portland and Ogdensburg Railroads. It was designed by Bradlee, Winslow and Wetherill of Boston, and opened on June 25, 1888. Granite came from the Redstone quarry, near Conway, NH; pink granite was used for the walls, and white for the trim. The waiting room floor was a chequerboard of white marble and grey slate, all bordered in red slate. Baronial fireplaces at either end were carved from red sandstone and had inserts of Tennessee and Vermont marble. Above, painted motifs adorned the ceiling. The clock in the 138-foot tower was reputed to be the most accurate outdoor timepiece in New England. It was equipped with a “double three-legged gravity escapement” device, invented by E.B. Denison for Big Ben at Westminster, and it was built to withstand harsh elements. The station was expanded in 1905, and a three-bay addition was designed by George Burnham, built in 1911. Union Station closed its doors in 1960 and was razed the following year over a period of six weeks, with the clock tower being one of the last pieces to go, on August 31, 1961. Its place was taken by a generic strip shopping centre called “Union Station Plaza”. The destruction spurred a preservation movement in Portland, and the founding of Greater Portland Landmarks. One fifth of the train shed was moved to Thompson's Point, where it awaits its fate, and the clock mechanism and face are at Congress Square.