GRAY – With the rights secured to a 2-mile stretch of the former Portland-Lewiston Interurban rail bed, the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad is “100 percent” committed to building a new museum in Gray Plaza, according to Donnell Carroll, the group’s executive director.

Since 2011, when the railroad group’s board of trustees voted to relocate their museum located on the Eastern Promenade in Portland, railroad officials have repeatedly expressed interest in moving it to Gray and constructing a new railroad for tourists on the old Interurban rail bed along Route 100. Gray officials have been trying to lure the railroad to town since 2010.

But until now, total commitment has seemed out of reach. As late as last November, Sharon Hickey, the president of the railroad’s board of trustees, said the group had not “closed the door on any option.” According to Carroll, a longtime Gray resident and former state representative, that is no longer the case.

“Everybody is all in,” Carroll said. “This is going to happen.”

When asked why the group decided to commit to Gray, Carroll said, “There weren’t a lot of other viable options.”

On April 11, representatives of the railroad group and Central Maine Power, which owns large stretches of the Interurban line between Portland and Lewiston, completed a ceremonial deed transfer in Gray Plaza.

The deed transfer, which will officially take place within weeks, grants the railroad group ownership of a 50-foot-wide strip of rail bed, stretching nearly 2 miles from Yarmouth Road (Route 115) to Long Hill Road. The railroad group has now acquired all the necessary land needed to set up the museum and station facility.

According to Alice Richards, a CMP supervisor for real estate services, the power company purchased the Interurban property when it acquired Androscoggin Electric Company in the 1920s. (The Interurban rail line operated on electric power.) Richards said that the company has periodically donated parts of the rail bed to abutting property owners ever since.

“As we’ve received requests, we’ve released the properties,” Richards said. “We saw this as a wonderful opportunity to bring the museum to Gray and what better thing to do than release all of this strip for the museum. We were on board from the very beginning.”

The railroad group has begun a roughly $6 million fundraising campaign in order to fund the new museum and railroad attraction. At April 11’s ceremony, railroad officials displayed a preliminary design of the proposed facility, which would feature an exterior meant to invoke a rural train station constructed between 1910 and 1930. The facility would include a roundhouse, an archive, a car barn, a water tower, a picnic area and possibly a camping area.

At the ceremony, local officials praised the proposed development, which has not yet been approved by the Gray Planning Board.

“Here we stand at the site of the future home for the museum, in which 10s of thousands of tourists, volunteers, students and local citizens will come every year to gather, work, research, learn and even take a train ride into the world of the narrow gauge and its rich heritage,” said Leo Credit, president of the Gray-New Gloucester Development Corporation.

Town Council Chairman Matt Sturgis echoed Credit’s sense of appreciation.

“Thank you so much for coming to Gray,” Sturgis said. “We heard about this, it seems like forever ago, because it’s taken so much time to get the railroad to come to Gray, but what a great neighbor. What a great opportunity to have them come here, complement this plaza, complement everything else we have going on in this community. It’s just another great shining star that will help people come to Gray, know where we are; and we’re happy to have you.”

“Let’s roll that train up to Gray,” Sturgis added.

Hickey described the pending deed transfer as a substantial step forward.

“This is a first major milestone in our quest to get a new and permanent home, and we are just tickled pink with it,” Hickey said. “Although this is an auspicious occasion, this is just the first step in our quest to make our dream a reality. Much work remains to be done. We have permits to be obtained, site work to be completed, buildings to be constructed, track to be laid, money to be raised and, finally, equipment to be moved. I have every confidence, taken step by step, that we can and will do it.”

The railroad group is in a state of flux. In late August, a consortium of developers purchased the 10-acre waterfront property in Portland that has housed the group’s museum-with-headquarters for two decades. The railroad group has one year left on a lease with the previous owner, Phineas Sprague. According to Carroll, the group hopes to continue operating the trains running on the Eastern Promenade in Portland until possibly 2023, when the Maine Department of Transportation’s lease for the right of way expires.

“If we have the staff and we can maintain that service, we will do it,” Carroll said.

Beth Humphrey, Gray’s director of economic development, said the pending deed transfer has kicked the railroad’s development process off in a meaningful way.

“They couldn’t proceed until they had the rights to the Interurban, and the fact that CMP has given the rights and ownership of the track has put that in a place now where they can move forward,” Humphrey said. “This is a huge step.”

On April 11, representatives of the Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad and Central Maine Power, which owns large stretches of the former Portland-Lewiston Interurban rail bed, completed a ceremonial deed transfer in Gray Plaza. On left is Sharon Hickey, president of the railroad’s board of trustees, while Alice Richards, a CMP supervisor for real estate services, is at right. The deed grants the railroad group ownership of a 50-foot-wide strip of rail bed, stretching nearly 2 miles from Yarmouth Road (Route 115) to Long Hill Road.