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…