After losing a Super Bowl bet, Maine’s Wiscasset, Waterville and Farmington Railway Museum raised more than $3,500 for Washington’s Mt. Rainier Scenic Railroad and Indiana’s Whitewater Valley Railroad.

Earlier this year, the WW&F made a friendly bet with Mt. Rainier on the outcome of the Super Bowl championship game between the New England Patriots and the Seattle Seahawks. The railroad whose team lost had to display the winning team’s flags on a locomotive for a full day of operation. Unfortunately for the WW&F, the Patriots lost to the Seahawks 29-13. On August 22 and 23, the WW&F made good on the bet and operated 0-4-4T locomotive 9 with Seahawks flags. In addition, the money raised over the weekend was donated to Mt Rainier, which is rebuilding a trestle burned in a fire, and to the Whitewater Valley, which was recently impacted by a massive flood. 

—Justin Franz