Winter Train to Lewiston

Winter Train © Bob Orsillo

Winter in Maine. A freight train crosses over the waterfalls and Androscoggin River traveling from Auburn into Lewiston, Maine. Photograph © Bob Orsillo.

Camera: Olympus E3 @ 12-60m f2.8 Zuiko lens

The Androscoggin River is a river in the US states of Maine and New Hampshire, in northern New England. It is 178 miles (287 km) long and joins the Kennebec River at Merrymeeting Bay in Maine before its water empties into the Gulf of Maine on the Atlantic Ocean. Its drainage basin is 3,530 square miles (9,100 km2) in area.

The Androscoggin begins in Errol, New Hampshire, where the Magalloway River joins the outlet of Umbagog Lake. The river flows generally south but with numerous bends past the towns of Errol and Milan and the city of Berlin before turning east at the town of Gorham, New Hampshire to cut across the northern end of the White Mountains and enter Maine. Continuing east, the river passes the towns of Bethel, Rumford, and Dixfield before turning south at the town of Livermore Falls and leaving the mountains behind. The river passes through the twin cities of Lewiston and Auburn, turns southeast, passes the community of Lisbon Falls and reaches tidewater just below the final falls in the town of Brunswick. Merrymeeting Bay is a 10-mile (16 km) long freshwater estuary where the Androscoggin meets the Kennebec River nearly 20 miles (32 km) inland from the Atlantic Ocean.