Is This Steam Locomotive in Yarmouth, Maine, Real or Fake?

I came across something this week that looked very odd to me.

I should start by saying if you don't already know, that I'm a train geek and have been ever since I was a little boy.

This is me with my train set at my grandparents' house in South Paris.

The Grand Trunk Railroad passed right across our street and I was fascinated by it and still one of the few people who doesn't mind waiting for a train to pass by.

I came across a stock image when I was writing another article that looked suspicious to me. It shows the former Grand Trunk Railroad station at Main Street in Yarmouth with a steam locomotive that has to be from the mid-19th century on the tracks at the station.

But is it real?

If you've ever been to Yarmouth, you've likely seen this station that today is a Gorham Savings Bank location.

Gorham Savings Bank paid the cost of refurbishing the station to make it look on the outside like it did when it was originally built.

The photo with the steam engine is sitting next to the same station, but at the time a florist was occupying it, which explains the flag with a flower.

This track is no longer in service ever since 2015 when the B&M plant in Portland stopped shipping beans by rail.

Looking closer at the image you can tell its a Photoshop job, and the stock photo company used a picture of the old railroad station, blocked out the Yarmouth sign hanging at the front of the building, and pasted in a mid-19th century locomotive.

The locomotive is also a mirror image, with the numbers and letters backward and the engineer on the wrong side of the cab. He's kind of fuzzy-looking, too.

Will most people notice this? No. Will Mainer's recognize the old station? Probably. But the railroad geek in me just shakes his head.