The Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Railroad (SR&RL) was a narrow gauge common carrier railroad that operated approximately of track in Franklin County, Maine. Former equipment from the SR&RL continues to operate in the present day on a revived, short segment of the railway in Phillips, Maine. History Josiah L. Maxey, a Gardiner banker who had recently financed construction of the Kennebec Central Railroad, obtained legislative approval for consolidation of the Sandy River Railroad and Phillips & Rangeley Railroad (P&R) on 10 March 1891. Maxcy purchased controlling stock of the Sandy River Railroad in 1892, and then obtained controlling stock of the Franklin & Megantic Railway (F&M) in 1897. Under Maxey's direction, F&M purchased the Kingfield and Dead River Railway (K&DR) at auction on 2 August 1898; and the F&M, K&DR, and Sandy River railroads operated under common management until formally merged as the SR&RL in January 1908. Under Maxcy's direction, SR&RL purchased the Phillips & Rangeley Railroad (P&R) and the Madrid Railroad at auction on 12 June 1908 and the Eustis Railroad at auction on 24 August 1911. Maine Central control As part of the New England transportation monopoly organized by the New York, New Haven & Hartford Railroad, the SR&RL operated as a subsidiary of the Maine Central Railroad from 1912 until receivership in 1923. Maine Central built 37 box cars, 37 flat cars, 3 cabooses and a baggage-RPO car in their Portland Terminal Company shops for the SR&RL between 1912 and 1917. SR&RL locomotives 15, 16, 17 and 18 were reboilered in the Maine Central Waterville shops during the same period, and a freight branch was built from Perham Junction to Barnjum. Outbound lumber traffic declined from 50,000 tons in 1906 to 11,000 tons in 1919. Pulpwood traffic increased as smaller spruce trees were harvested. The Phillips shop converted two-thirds of the flat cars for loading with 4-foot-long (1.2 meter) pulpwood logs by installing high, slatted sides and ends loosely resembling a stock car with doors and roof removed. Federal railway post office service between Farmington and Phillips ended 13 March 1917. Freight traffic peaked at 157,809 tons in 1919; but 84 percent of that freight was pulpwood, and demand for pulpwood declined dramatically when federal paper contracts were canceled at the end of World War I. 1919 was the last year of service on the three miles of the former Eustis Railroad beyond Langtown. Various curtailments