Edaville Railroad
The main entrance in 2006.
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| Locale | Carver, Massachusetts, U.S. |
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| Dates of operation | 1947–1991 (first park) 1999–present (second park) |
| Track gauge | 2 ft (610 mm) |
| Length | 2.5 miles |
| Headquarters | South Carver |
Edaville Railroad is a heritage railroad in South Carver, Massachusetts, opened in 1947. It is generally regarded as one of the oldest heritage railroad operations in the United States. It is a 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge line that operates excursion trains for tourists, built by the late Ellis D. Atwood (initials E.D.A, for which Edaville is named) on his sprawling cranberry plantation in Southeastern Massachusetts.
Atwood purchased two locomotives and most of the passenger and freight cars when the Bridgton and Saco River Railroad was dismantled in 1941. After World War II he acquired two former Monson Railroad locomotives and some surviving cars from the defunct Sandy River and Rangeley Lakes Railroad in Maine. This equipment ran on 2 ft (610 mm) narrow gauge tracks, as opposed to the more common 3 ft (914 mm) narrow gauge in the western United States. Atwood purchased the equipment for use on his 1,800-acre (730 ha) cranberry plantation in South Carver. Sand and supplies were hauled in to the bogs, and cranberries were transported to a "screen house" where they were dried and then sent to market. Atwood's neighbors were enchanted with the diminutive railroad. At first, Atwood offered rides for free. When the demand for rides soared, he charged a nickel a ride. Eventually the line became less of a working railroad and more of a tourist attraction.
Atwood died in 1950, the result of injuries he received when the oil burner in the screen house exploded. His widow Elthea and nephew Dave Eldridge carried on operations at Edaville until the railroad was purchased in 1957 by F. Nelson Blount, a railroad enthusiast who had made a fortune in the seafood processing business. The Atwood Estate retained ownership of the land over which the railroad operated, a key point in later years. Blount operated Edaville for the next decade, hauling tourists behind his favorite engine #8 and displaying his ever-growing collection of locomotives. Among these was the Boston and Maine Railroad's Flying Yankee. This helped form the basis for his Steamtown, USA collection, first operating at Keene, New Hampshire before moving to Bellows Falls, Vermont. (It would later move and be reconstituted as the Steamtown National Historic Site in Scranton, Pennsylvania.)
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