Eagle Lake Tramway, Historic logging transport system in Northwest Piscataquis, US

Eagle Lake Tramway is a historic cable transport system that once moved logs through the forest between two lakes in northwestern Maine. Steel trucks ran along cables through dense woodland, allowing timber to bypass natural barriers that made ground transport impossible.

Built in 1902, the tramway replaced oxen that had hauled timber across the neck between Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes. It ran until 1907, when the Lombard Steam Log Hauler made it obsolete. In 1927 its Eagle Lake end became the eastern terminus of the Eagle Lake and West Branch Railroad, which hauled timber until 1933.

Before the tramway, oxen hauled timber between Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes. The steam-powered cable system, with a 6,000-foot wire loop, replaced that slower method and moved over 500,000 board-feet on a typical working day. Volunteers restored part of the tramway in 2012.

The tramway lies within the Allagash Wilderness Waterway, a Maine state park; access is by water or remote woods roads. The surviving cable and track elements are collapsing into the ground as ties deteriorate, and the steam plant remains are at the Chamberlain Lake end. The two locomotives of the later railroad are vandal-stripped and exposed to the elements.

Before the tramway, oxen hauled wood between Eagle and Chamberlain Lakes. The steam-powered replacement moved logs at 250 feet per minute, averaging over 500,000 board-feet a day, until the Lombard Steam Log Hauler made it obsolete in 1907.