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In researching the Martha's Vineyard Railroad, I learned some things that I expected, and some things that I didn't expect. What I expected to learn was that there was a reason for building a Railroad and that there must be a reason for building it to run from Oak Bluffs through Edgartown to Katama, and there was. The Railroad idea came about as Edgartown watched Oak Bluffs, the steamer port for summer visitors, prosper. Edgartown was a couple miles down the coast, and you could only get from the Steamship wharf to Edgartown or Katama by taking a long dirt road. The supporters of the Railroad Railroad wanted it to make it easier for the people in the three towns to get to social functions in each other's town. Edgartown thought that if the train brought passengers to their town, they would all make more money and prosper just as richly as Oak Bluffs.
It was interesting to find out that when it came time to chose the route, some wanted it to go along State Beach, parallel to the Edgartown - Oak Bluffs road because the distance was shorter, and it offered a scenic ride. Others wanted it to go west of Sengekontacket Pond because they thought that the noise would bother the horses traveling along the Oak Bluffs - Edgartown road. It was finally decided to build the tracks along State Beach. It was a shorter distance and it would coast less to build.
What I didn't expect to learn was that when the Edgartown townspeople proposed to buy into the Martha's Vineyard Railroad, thus assuring the train to Edgartown, the issue passed by only two votes. This meant that only two votes more then half the townspeople wanted it, so that their town would get income from tourists. The other half didn't want it because they were skeptical about using town money to pay for a private project. There must have been some pretty lively discussions with so many opposite views.
It surprised me to learn that on the day of the train's test run, while everyone was celebrating and watching, the "dummy" engine (an engine that looks like a passenger car) start it's first run, it couldn't get around the first turn. A direct drive sprocket wouldn't allow the engine to take tight corners. Seeing that the new Martha's Vineyard Railroad line had purchased an engine that couldn't be used made even more people skeptical of the Railroad idea, and made them think that they had wasted the town's money.
A new train was quickly ordered and it arrived in Woods Hole, It was loaded onto a barge with other rail cars, somehow one of the rail car's brakes failed, and it rammed into the new engine, pushing it off the end of the barge and into the harbour where it sank. This created in an even bigger delay for the Martha's Vineyard Railroad line. A crane had to be hired to lift the engine out of the water. The engine had to be shipped to Boston to be repaired, and then shipped back to Wood's Hole, put on a barge, and again shipped to Martha's Vineyard.