When Guilford abandoned the MEC’s Mountain Division in 1983, the east end was purchased by MaineDOT with the hopes of finding an operator for this woefully neglected line. The PV&T, thinking that it was possible to get back some of the shippers with better service, stepped in and set up the Portland & North Conway Railroad to operate MaineDOT’s section and the stub from the Maine border to North Conway, NH.
After going over the line to upgrade it to class 3 trackage (40mph freight) the railroad managed to claw back enough business to make it a marginally profitable operation (marginally profitable only because the ROW was owned by the state of Maine and thus wasn’t being whacked with property taxes) and survives to this day on a diet of freight and the occasional Conway Scenic excursion down to Portland.
In 2017, the P&NC became the designated freight operator for the ex-B&M&sp;Conway Branch from Ossipee to Madison (the missing section of the original line from Rochester to the junction with the Mountain Division at Intervale and has since rebuilt the line to support 25 MPH trains. There is literally no traffic originating on this section of line, except for the occasional northbound gravel train from the Boston Sand & Gravel pit south of Ossipee and a very infrequent delivery or pickup from the team tracks in Ossipee & West Ossipee.