FREEPORT – It was a somber day, Sept. 5, 1960, when Nelson Soule stamped the last passenger ticket at Freeport Station and boarded the Maine Central Railroad’s last passenger train to Brunswick.

Soule had been the station agent in Freeport for about 15 years, overseeing the comings and goings of townspeople and visitors, and making sure truckloads of goods produced by L.L. Bean and other manufacturers in town were loaded carefully and on time.

Additional Photos Nelson Soule, 92, of Cumberland, rides the Amtrak Downeaster with his wife, Margaret, as it makes its inaugural run north of Portland to Freeport and Brunswick on Thursday. Gabe Souza/Staff Photographer This is the last ticket that Nelson Soule, Freeport's last station agent, stamped for himself before taking a final trip to Brunswick onthe last day of passenger service on Sept. 5, 1960. Gordon Chibroski/Staff Photographer The Freeport train station around the turn of the 20th century. Photo courtesy Nelson Soule The Freeport train station in 1950, with trucks filled with L.L. Bean packages ready to be loaded onto freight cars. Photo courtesy Nelson Soule This is the schedule board from Freeport Station the day the station closed in 1960. Photo courtesy of Nelson Soule Related Headlines Last leg of long journey for Downeaster

Soule worked another 20 years on Maine railroads, retiring in 1980, but he never lost that ticket.

“I wanted to remember that day,” Soule recalled. “It was the end of an era.”

Freeport’s last station agent helped to usher in a new era of train travel in Maine on Thursday,