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Event Gallery: The Owl’s Head Transportation Museum’s Snow Movers Exhibition


Event Gallery: The Owl’s Head Transportation Museum’s Snow Movers Exhibition

Owl’s Head, Maine is a small hamlet outside of the coastal city of Rockland. It is home to the Owl’s Head Transportation Museum, one of the neatest automotive, airplane, and mechanically themed museums we’ve ever visited. Having caught wind of a yearly winter themed show the museum holds, we decided to pack up the family and head north to see their collection of cars and planes and also to see some neat snow themed machinery in action. The main event of the festival was the running of a 1904 Lombard Steam Log Hauler, a truly astounding machine with deep Maine history. 

It was frigid on the day of the show and ironically, that may have kept some folks away. When we left our hotel, mid-morning, the thermometer was reading 16 degrees, before taking into account winds that were gusting at 20mph plus. Below zero? Oh yes, by a lot.

Undaunted, we bundled up the kids and set forth to the museum. Housed in several large hanger buildings the collection at Owl’d Head concentrates on early automobiles and air planes, which are two things we never tire of looking at. Seeing these primordial cars and tracking the evolution of the automobile really is a study in the human mind.

There was no “right” way to build a car in the early days, so all ideas were fair game, and it is safe to say that the vast majority were failures. Glorious failures, we’d add. It is pretty amazing to think of all that neat old automotive history finding it’s way to this small town in Maine, but it is there, and in spades. We’d say that touring this place is mandatory BangShift homework for anyone in the greater New England area or someone who may be vacationing in the Northeast.

Seeing the old Lombard heat up, make steam, and ultimately chunge around in the snow was great. The machine, which for all intents and purposes is a steam locomotive that powers crawler tracks is astounding in both it’s simplicity and rustic grace. The engineer’s cabin and driver’s area at the front of the machine are made from old rough hewn planks, while the rest of the hauler is made from iron. We have no idea of the weight, but combine with the tank of water for the boiler, this is one heavy son of a gun. It was so cold that the machine was frozen to the ground to start the day. Some persuation with a sledge and a large 4×4 beam free’d her up and off she went into the large open field behind the museum building.

Hit the link below to see our photos from the snow movers exhibit and also our entire gallery touring the museum and the treasures within, it is 100% BangShift approved!

Show and Tour Gallery – A museum tour and the snow movers exhibit at the Owl’s Head Transporation Museum, Owl’s Head, Maine

Lombard Log hauler

Early American LaFrance fire truck 


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