February Picture Worth A Thousand Words

Who's model railroad is this anyway?

It's usually someone's basement or garage layout where you'd see something approaching the features in this photo. Of course, talk of another adventure next summer caused the brain to think about last summer. Snow and slush outside also caused a longing for warm and sunny days, gone by in this case.

Who doesn't recognize Tehachapi Loop built by the Southern Pacific Railroad in California? It's been well documented by magazines, videos, books and other railroad enthusiast literature. Of course there's nothing like visiting there live. Local Maine Central Railroad expert and author George Melvin and his wife Kathy were recently moved enough to write and publish "Tehachapi Today". The resulting book is a "must own" for anyone going there, or anyone who's been there! The maps and photos would have been helpful to our visit, but they will be useful for a triumphant return.

What really prompts the time put into writing all this is the unique features found in this one photo. Here you get to see the whole train spiral around itself. This feature is itself apparent with the help of the stark contrast of many white trailers on all of the cars in the picture. The train was heading upgrade and the power had just passed along with the non-trailer cars on the point. The train was well beyond sight still behind the scene below the tunnel. If I was a few feet higher you'd see another line of trailers on the rear of the train snaking around to the right. This type of thing is usually limited to model railroads and of course this was all built before modern machinery in the real world. And, how many of you could get this many cars to stay on this track design on a model railroad? "Stringlining" anyone? I'm sure a few people out there have that many cars and trailers along with the savvy to make it work.

The last feature that makes this unique and model-like is the scenery. For one thing, it's very open. You can see the loop. The Williams Loop on the old Western Pacific farther north is buried in trees. The scenery near Tehachapi is also relatively simple. Brown colors and a few lumps of vegetation. Not too difficult to create on a layout. Of course the complete view would be tough to duplicate, but the scene nearer the tracks is a bag or two of lichen away from done once the
plaster dries. Boy did we have fun with that thought on this trip!

BC

The Adventures Of The Hebron Any Power Team: Adventures Down South

The Adventures Of The Hebron Any Power Team: Adventures Down South

Adventures Down South

You have to be a bit familiar with "Maine Humor" to understand the title. From what I understand, we ventured to only a few miles from the "snow line", referring to the beginning of the "mid-atlantic snow crisis of 2010" zone. That's backwards. Maine usually get the brunt of the snow and you drive south to get well out of it. Well, over the weekend, the DT&I fan and I hit the Portsmouth, NH region; Palmer, Mass and of course Worcester. No snow problems, just a cold wind.

Our first real stop on Saturday was Neal's N Gauging Trains in Hampton, NH. With plenty of daylight left, but no maps, we struck out toward the freight main. The East Kingston depot was where we made our first contact with the tracks so we followed them back toward Portland. We dropped in on the Durham depot but didn't expect to see much there and couldn't find reasonable parking. Apparently UNH was having some kind of big event and there wasn't any place to park. Onward and upward. We found our way to Dover. A quick check of the schedule pointed to only a short wait. This gave us time to plan shots in this crowded spot. The shot at the top was the best I could do and I had to use the wide-angle lens for it. We followed tracks and the old Sanford & Eastern line back as the light faded. We attempted to find relics in Sanford but didn't have the bearings close enough to linger.

On Sunday, we pretty much made a bee-line to Palmer, MA. Not much CSX action other than Amtrak but we saw 3 of the 4 daily passenger trains. We also watched an NECR unit switch the yard over on Dublin St. Only dull place shots and a couple of detail shots there. Plenty of odd equipment around though.

As you can see by the chronological Amtrak photos on the right, we caught the westbound Lake Shore Limited fairly soon after we arrived. It is gliding by on the main just before it bounced everyone around on the NECR crossing diamond.

Next came the southbound Vermonter. They pulled up on the controlled siding as two westbound units of light power came by on the main. Later on L437 pulled into the yard but had to clear the controlled siding and provide headroom for the northbound Vermonter. The conductor looked mighty cold tramping back and forth between the crossover switches. L437 still had work to do apparently and our time was running out, so we moved on to Worcester. Besides, I've got dozens of shots of trains in Palmer already.

Skull showed up after we had dinner and a few other W.F.P.T. folks made an appearance. It was a bit too cold to stay very long but we put in a couple of hours. Besides the "T" we got to see the Q427 come down and meet the eastbound Q426. That makes about 3 visits in a row that I got to see the two round the curve by Worcester station. Apparently a P&W Bow coal train was sitting outside of town waiting on a crew. That would have made another form of hat trick.

BC