Massachusetts’ Edaville Family Theme Park has been sold, and its amusement rides will be auctioned off this spring. However, the narrow gauge railroad that has circled the park since the 1940s is expected to remain in operation.
Edaville was founded by Ellis D. Atwood in 1947 after he purchased all the equipment he could find from the recently defunct Maine two-footers. Initially, Atwood planned to use the narrow gauge trains for his extensive cranberry bog operations, but people kept showing up asking for rides. By the 1950s, Edaville had transformed into a full-fledged tourist railroad. The railroad operated until the 1990s when the equipment returned to Maine to form the core of the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Co. & Museum. In 1999, Jon Delli Priscoli reopened the park after leasing it from the Atwood family.
Following the pandemic, the park was put up for sale, and its future looked uncertain. However, in 2022, the railroad announced that two new individuals would take over the operation: Shervin B. Hawley, managing partner from Sudbury, Mass., and Brian Fanslau, operations partner from Alna, Maine. Fanslau also manages Maine Locomotive & Machine Works, which rebuilds locomotives and cars and has performed extensive work with narrow gauge equipment. Over the last three years, Fanslau and Hawley have operated the railroad, primarily during the holiday season when the park transformed into a festive holiday wonderland.
In late March, it was announced that the property had been sold to King Richard’s Faire, a nearby Renaissance fair typically held in the fall that had lost the lease on its previous location. Edaville’s numerous amusement rides will be sold to make way for the fair. However, Fanslau stated that the new owners have expressed interest in retaining the railroad, and he is optimistic that it will operate during the holiday season as it has in the past.
While the narrow gauge equipment will stay on the property for now (most notably Monson Railroad 0-4-4T 3 leased from Maine Narrow Gauge in Portland), some standard gauge equipment is being moved off-site. Among them is Wolfeboro Railroad 2-6-2 250, which is being relocated to the Grafton & Upton Railroad. —Justin Franz
