State of Maine Express

The core service was through sleeping cars between New York and Portland. One of these sleeping cars was sometimes carried on connecting Maine Central trains to or from Bangor, Maine, or points near the Maine coast. The State of Maine also carried through sleeping cars between New York and Concord, New Hampshire, until 1958. Coaches were also carried. As the last Maine passenger train with connections south of Boston, the State of Maine carried increasing numbers of express and mail cars during the declining years of passenger service.[5] From delivery of stainless steel sleeping cars to Boston & Maine and New Haven in 1954 until service ended on October 29, 1960, the train north of Worcester typically required a pair of Boston & Maine or Maine Central EMD E7s to pull a long string of head-end cars followed by a single stainless steel New Haven coach and a single stainless steel sleeping car. Many of the head-end cars were former troop sleepers converted to baggage cars.[6] Most were New Haven and Boston & Maine cars, with a few from the Pennsylvania Railroad and the New York Central Railroad. Many resort owners operated both a summer resort in Maine and a winter resort in Florida. These individuals required newspapers from each location; and those newspapers were often carried in baggage cars of the Maine Central, Atlantic Coast Line Railroad or Florida East Coast Railway.[7]