History of Cape Ann Rail
Presented by the Jonathan Bayliss Society and the Sawyer Free Library
Saturday, November 14, 2026, 3:00-4:00 pm
Sawyer Free Library, 2 Dale Avenue, Gloucester
Free and open to the public; advance registration required
Join us for an fascinating program about the development of rail on Cape Ann. Retired locomotive engineer Alan MacMillan – famous for reading poetry and providing weather updates to his passengers on the Rockport-North Station line – will illustrate his talk about the local history of freight and passenger service with slides from his extensive photograph collection.
MacMillan, who was introduced to locomotives as a young boy by his railroad-construction-engineer father, worked for 44 years on six New England railroads and currently serves on the Board of Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts.
Gloucester writer Ken Riaf – whose plays include My Station in Life, Think of Me Tuesday, and Copy and Acknowledge - will read brief passages about rail from the Gloucesterman novels of Jonathan Bayliss (1926-2009), who in the early 1930s lived near the Rockport train station and was treated by an engineer to a locomotive ride on the turnaround loop.
Sign up here.
Free parking for library visitors is available in the School Street parking lot. Metered parking is available on Dale Ave and surrounding streets, as well as in the Pleasant Street lot, accessed from Middle and Warren Streets.