NY-NE Holiday Potpourri

Three of us were prepared Monday to make an overnight run to the Albany area when the Wheelman had to back out for a family emergency. Paul Lodge (Train Time CEO and Chief Video Tape Rewinder) and I carried on since the motel was no longer refundable and here are a few of the results. It was cold and overcast most of the time but could have been worse.

We took up the chase on the B&A main west of Worcester. The first real stop was Palmer. We thought we had a westbound autorack following us since about Spencer or Brookfield. It was in sight once but the crew was on the horn with Jacksonville to revive one of the units so we thought they might stop. They did not. It met us in Palmer. Neat. I thought I was seeing things when I saw two sets of lights coming at us at the bridge though. None other than "lightning striped" Mass Central #960 was in town. That was a personal "good catch". As he moved off, the westbound autorack blew through on the controlled siding. (Take another look at the logo on that one above.) Not bad for just passing through. NECR was quiet and the Steaming Tender Restaurant was closed (Mondays and Tuesdays - figures!) so we moved west.

Closer to Springfield, Amtrak 449 hit town while we were away from the tracks. The scanner chatter indicated that we may get to the edge of town before it would. We stayed on Rt. 20 through town and met it at the former Agawam depot in West Springfield. No more chatter to indicate another westbound or incoming eastbounds so we headed west again.

Staying on Rt. 20 we headed toward Chester. Beyond Huntington we began to hear chatter. We finally saw headlights ahead and turned back to downtown Huntington and the bridge. We caught an eastbound mixed freight with a pair of new 900 series GE's there (4400hp, AC, high adhesion trucks). That's 944 on the lead followed by 941(?) but I mainly include these shots to show Paul doing his thing with video on the left by the buildings. His shots are probably useable. My shots are a lesson in "mis-firing" and other forms of goof. I tried to re-shoot the first bad shot with a second but ran afoul of the branches on the right before my digital fired off. A faster firing mode would have worked, but who uses the "motor-drive" setting for railfanning? Here's one place it would have helped, assuming I could work with the clutter, overcast sky and small space to begin with. That train was moving right along. At least you can see the new and very bright number boards of the high adhesion units.


We moved on to Chester to finish off the daylight. All we needed was a train. While we waited Paul shot some video of the granite cars being unloaded by a specially equipped excavator. A tractor-trailer would pull up to the ramp and the operator would get out of his warm pickup truck, fire up the machine and load up a few pieces of stone from the CSX gondolas lined up on the siding. Neat to see how it worked. It will likely show up in a Train Time episode. Just as I was down to almost no light, a westbound could be heard working the hill. I goosed the digital to 1600 ISO and gave it a whirl. Paul's video didn't suffer as much. A pair of "washing machines" and a geep led a mixed train. It had construction debris cars so it may have been Q421, which coincidentally is the last freight train I saw here years ago (with "the devil's unit" #666 trailing no less). I only include the shot here because I like the Christmas decorations on the depot. Light ran out so we pretty much made a fairly straight run to Palatine Bridge and the trackside views of the Roadway Inn.


I was hoping for a morning parade of trains to photograph but for some reason it didn't pan out once we got the gear ready and the sun was bright. We did see the all UP consist of an eastbound produce train in the semi-dark. 3 UP units and all white UP reefers in tow. Naturally this passed as we were waking up. A couple more trains, including Amtrak, passed while we got ready, but only one passed while Paul was trackside. He did get a passing Amish buggy and a westbound hi-rail truck, but the radio was quiet. Tough luck this trip. At around 8:30am we headed for the diner in Canajoharie for breakfast then crossed the mountains to see the CP/D&H. Not a bad drive except we found blizzard conditions once we gained any altitude.

The scanner came to life once we got within range of Cobleskill. It sounded like a southbound and a maintainer clearing switches. We hadn't yet found a mile post so we had little idea which way to go. We went the wrong way first. But, the chatter did not cease so we headed out and caught up around the siding at Richmondville. Actually we saw the northbound NS168(?) clearing the siding and chose to keep going to see if we could catch some CP power on the southbound. We sure did. Gaining some lead time, we got out at Cooperstown Jct. by the GG-1's and caught some good photos. We decided that our time would be better spent returning east so we broke off the chase. Following Rt. 7 we caught up with NS168 at Delanson. It appeared to be waiting on someone so we set up at the other end of the siding by the Albany main. NS169 appeared through the blowing snow after a short wait, then NS168 moved north under the signal bridge. Not a bad series of catches for a line a lot of us routinely get skunked on.

The snow returned so we headed for I-88 and headed east to Mass. We tried Rt. 20 again at Lee but nothing moved before darkness fell. A repeat visit to Chester, complete with granite loading, was all we had but no trains this time. We returned to the Mass Pike at Westfield and eventually got to Worcester and caught up with Skull for the previously posted "summit". This more than made up for any lack of action since Delanson. I hope Paul's videos show something because that place was hopping while we were there. Well worth the hypothermia to see the P&W come down from Gardner between the two CSX trains (Q427 then Q426). We left after 7:30pm so we missed even more activity, but we got home late enough from this trip.

Not a bad way to celebrate the holidays!

BC