GILEAD — The old Gilead train station has new tracks running to it — complete with a bumper stop and a whistle post.

The train station building, moved twice since its original location next to the St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad tracks, has been sitting at its most recent home on Depot Street since 2011, according to Lin Chapman of the Gilead Historical Society. The oldest known railroad depot in Maine, it serves as a museum of local rail history and receives regular tourist visitors who pass by on nearby Route 2 in the summer.

The society maintains the building, along with an old schoolhouse next door.

In 2022, a railroad baggage car was added at the station site. Chapman said the car was restored by Cruiser Solutions of New Hampshire, working initially with the only original parts — the iron remains of the car, including the wheels. A replica wooden frame was built to attach to them. The baggage car was originally donated by Stephen and Lise McLain a few years before the restoration began.

In August, society members and volunteers from two states placed cast-off rails and ties on a bed of gravel next to the train station to simulate train tracks.

They didn’t have to go far to get them. The St. Lawrence and Atlantic Railroad tracks run just on the other side of Depot Street from the station.

Historical society member Hugh Chapman, Lin’s husband, said that following some rail work, the railroad company had left old rails and ties behind, sitting next to its tracks. The society members asked if they could have them, and the company agreed.

In early August, the volunteers dragged them across the street, and historical society trustee Peter Risbara placed them with his tractor on gravel from Daniels Landscaping of Gorham, New Hampshire.

Then came the additions that might not be familiar to people other than rail enthusiasts, though they likely have seen them along tracks.

A whistle post, white with the black letter “W” on it, was donated by Steve Hastings a few years ago. It had first been placed next to the station building, but was relocated to be next to the new tracks.

Whistle posts let train engineers know when to sound their whistle when approaching a crossing.

And then the biggest, and most likely heaviest, addition followed. It was a bumper stop, donated by Paul and Marsya Robert of Bethel. It had come into their possession when they bought the property of George and Danna Nickerson, formerly of Bethel, who moved out of town a few years ago. Hugh Chapman said George Nickerson had brought it home from where he worked, at the P.H. Chadbourne Mill in Bethel. The mill was next to the St. Lawrence and Atlantic track there.

A bumper stop sits at the end of a rail siding and is the last line of defense in case an engineer slightly misjudges his speed and distance when moving rail cars onto the siding. The bumper stop keeps the last car from dropping off the end of the rails.

Hugh Chapman estimated its weight at at least 1,700 pounds. Moving it from Bethel was no easy task, he said. Enlisted to help was Robert Chapman of Chapman Scrap Metal Recycling of Milan, New Hampshire. He brought a large truck, loaded the bumper stop, and brought it to Gilead.

The track section, bumper stop and whistle post lend more of a railroad context to the station building, which Hugh Chapman said people unfamiliar with railroads might not otherwise recognize.

Now all the track display needs, Lin Chapman said, is something “such as a putt putt (a small motorized vehicle used by maintenance crews) or a hand pump track car.”

Alison Aloisio is a freelance writer.