[2] Approximately 30 miles (48 km) of 70-pound (32 kg) steel rail was laid in 33-foot (10 m) lengths over private right-of-way connecting segments of trackage rights over Portland, Lewiston, and Auburn city streetcar lines.

Each axle of the two-truck cars was equipped with a 90 horsepower (67 kW) motor geared for a top speed of 59 miles (95 km) per hour.

Express car 32 and Gladiolus suffered repairable minor damage in a slow head-on collision in Falmouth on 1 March 1918.

The Maine Statehood Centennial Exposition in Portland on 5 July 1920 created the PLI's heaviest daily passenger load.

Coach-smoker Maine was purchased for the Exposition, and the box express cars were temporarily fitted with benches to carry all the passengers.

Two extra cars carrying the Auburn high school basketball team and students to a Portland game collided at Deering Junction on 24 January 1924.

In September 1929 the competing Androscoggin and Kennebec (A&K) electric railway abandoned its parallel line south of Lewiston in favor of a trackage rights agreement with the PLI.

[2] As increasing numbers of riders left PLI cars for automobiles through the 1920s and Great Depression, interurban service ended on 29 June 1933[5] and the rails were lifted in 1934.