Bill's Adventures Northern Holiday Edition

We probably had our timing down pretty well as far as leaving the Auburn area to be in Mattawamkeag for anything, but I think we missed the memo that said it was an extended holiday. No trains moving. Little scanner chatter. Few openings in the clouds.

On the plus side, we don't get north very often so it was a scenic drive with a few friends. Videoman drove the mini-van and the rest of us managed to stay hopeful despite the silent radio and misty weather. After all, Bill always brought us luck, right?

The first stops at NMJ and the Keag yielded our first strike-outs. Nothing to see in NMJ behind a string of boxcars but we could hear a Pan Am unit and a grey unit idling. (same scene later too) At the Keag, nothing had been by, judging by the condition of the rail and the crossings, but this turned out to be because nothing came west to begin with. We did see a young fox playing around in the yard though. We all got a chance to photograph him when he just sat down on the NBSR main to see what we were up to.

Our next objective was the Millinocket area. Tri-color #21 was sitting by the East Millinocket depot with a remote caboose. That find did brighten things a bit. Good to see the old relic still in use. After crossing the spot where #24 died a few years ago, we stopped for lunch at the local pizza joint in the shopping center. We then ate by the Millinocket yard. That was one empty place. The lack of radio chatter was deafening.


On to the usual haunts of Brownville Jct., Derby and Northern Maine Jct. The shops and HQ seemed to be working but no operations. #2001 was sitting in Brownville Jct. yard but nada again. We thought we heard an RTC (part english, part french) and a crew's answer but did not know where. We found a place by the former depot to wait and the scanner went quiet again. Must have been headed west and out of our range. Derby had a fair assortment of equipment laying around but little of note in a good viewing spot. 2 ex-CN SD40's sat among the trees on the north end. At NMJ it was time to call Joey so we met him at Dysarts, since we can't go by that place without eating something. A fun time was had by all. Joey was planning to spend his weekend at Brooks Preservation Society to work the opening of the newest incarnation of the B&ML.

Waterville was to be a quick stop on the way back. Outside of Fairfield we heard an actual radio transmission that sounded like SAPPI 4 was having trouble with low water on the #15. Problem was we didn't know where. At the Fairfield exit, we could have gone north but went toward Waterville guessing that it had not left town yet. Again the radio went quiet so we looked around the fairly empty yard. A hostler was moving units around on the turntable (hidden behind cars in the yard of course - but the sounds were unmistakable) which made this the liveliest place all day. The sun came out so I recorded some of the equipment laying around. No SAPPI 4 so we obviously went the wrong way. A trip to the west end got us in a good place to see the newish Pan Am paint scheme on #506 leading a westbound train. Who knows when that will move.

Amazing how we got skunked all day but managed to have a pretty good time anyway. I think we all took plenty of photos despite seeing no moving trains. On a normal Friday we should have heard 2 trains moving before we got to Augusta! Who sends out those memos!

BC