A crew works to stabilize derailed hoppers at Casco Junction in the spring of 1940.

This photo was taken near Casco Junction at the Casco Sand & Gravel pit. The pit was just east of the Ahnapee & Western main line which is on the ridge with the telegraph line in the background of the picture. This gravel pit is now a pond.

It looks like the two hoppers loaded with ballast derailed when the tracks moved out of alignment. Springtime thaws were a major headache for maintenance crews on the Green Bay Route. Besides flooding rivers swollen by melting snow, uneven melting of the frozen ground under the tracks often led to problems. The ground thaws from the surface down and the frozen lower layers of ground prevent meting water from draining through the soil, turning the upper layers of soil to mud and moving the tracks out of alignment. The steep slope of the shoulders next to the track probably contributed to the derailment, too.

Railroad paperwork dated May 13, 1940 reports what happened:

A follow-up at the bottom of the report says: