MEC 52 Encounter

Here is what comes from clean living and some detective work with a scanner!


The DT&I Fan and I set out for Waterville the day before Christmas in order to see what we might scare up on District 1. We figured there was the odd chance we might see Maine Central heritage unit #52 on one of the locals but really didn't have that much hope it would happen. We really wanted to be be out and about but not caught up in the holiday traffic and shopping frenzy.

The ride up was pretty much the norm for District 1. Nothing much happening. We thought we were going to be skunked. The night before DT&I Fan had heard the TOM talking to the SAPPI local led by #51. The TOM also joked about that train being popular with the railfans that night. We knew that meant that MEC #52 was probably on the other end of the lashup. It was also likely that #51 was leading toward the mill. But again, we figured little would happen today due to the holidays. It was good to hear that the "Geeps" were back after a long absence anyway.

Things changes as we exited I-95 at Waterville. We heard the SAPPI local getting permission from the TOM (Train Operations Manager) to move. Problem was, we didn't hear the number or location. Since we heard only the TOM side, we figured the train was distant from town, at the mill in Hinckley. Based on the prior day's intelligence data, we could surmise that #52 might be leading. So we deduced that it might be #52 asking to head south from Hinckley and we should head up the road north.

Well, that bit of detective work paid off nicely as you can see. We got within sight of the long crossing before the mill just as the units had crossed it. We immediately turned around at the store near there and headed to the previously scoped out bridge by the Goodwill-Hinckley School. A gaggle of local fans beat us to it. The sun was nearly perfect so I don't blame them. We knew some of them too. It was windy and frostbite was lurking when the 10mph local eventually made it to the bridge. But it was fun chatting with the other railfans as we waited. They were surprised to learn that we "happened upon" this run.

The gaggle knew where they were going and made more stops but the two of us were happy to continue on to Shawmut. The shot at the top of the page came from there. With the good sun and the cold causing the steam from the mill to show so well, it was the best shot of the trip. The old trio of Geeps gave us a smoke show now and then on the rough track. They let out a good cloud of diesel smoke right after my first Shawmut shot (top of page) and a bit still shows on the left shot. The town was still shrouded with a thick cloud when we worked our way through the streets driving back to Waterville.

We got out again at the Rt.201 crossing (left), again at CPF110, and then the shot on the right at the east end of the Waterville Yard. At this point we could have stopped but the units were visible on the side street next to the yard. Once we'd had our fill we headed to lunch at Burger King and returned to the yard office lot. The units were already tied up there. The gaggle's cars were mostly parked there too but they had disappeared to the other end by the 470 display. It was too windy so we ate lunch and sat in the car until we had some idea if anything was moving. It wasn't. The gaggle returned to their cars and we said our good byes. I took this opportunity to get out and get this final shot of the plow next to the #52. Nice to see an old MEC green plow in light of all the paint work going on lately. The plow on the other end was painted for Pan Am last year.

On the way home, we got pretty well skunked as usual. As we were going by Leeds Jct. we could hear the TOM giving someone clearance from CPF 169 to CPF 185. No way we'd get there before dark. So we headed over to Lewiston Jct. for a look at the SLR. The last shot seemed to be of the quiet before the holiday. This lashup was quietly waiting for the next run. I of course had to record the former GP40X's and their slugs even if the shadows were getting a bit long.


Not a bad day.


BC

HAPT Albany Expedition

It's been a while since this particular group had assembled but this trip was put together and done in relatively short order. It meant we took off before much prep work had been done, but between all of us, we had a pretty good idea what to look for. "The Wheelman" knew the area, "The Fiddler" and I knew roughly what rail operations were around. "The Videoman" was pretty much at our mercy but knew we'd find trains for his camera. We all figured this was a great use for Boxing Day.

We left Hebron at about 7:30am or so. We made a stop in Ayer and drove through Gardner. No noise on the scanner so we worked our way to E. Deerfield Yard and "Railfan Bridge". There we immediately spotted the B&M heritage unit. There was a coal train that recently pulled up from Mt. Tom so the power was in the process of changing ends. That gave "Videoman" something to photograph. I wandered around to get some marginal shots of the B&M unit too.

We wandered a bit south to see what we could find on CSX but nothing squawked. The power was sitting idle in the W. Springfield Yard but nothing was moving. After a shot of the power, we headed west along Route 20 until it got to the Mass Pike. From there we went straight to W. Coxsachie and our hotel. The Fiddler was traveling up from PA so we met him there.

Not much in the way of photography happened the rest of the evening but after a dinner at Yan's Chinese Buffet, we wandered over to Selkirk Yard, Feura Bush and finally CP VO to watch some trains. "VO" in Voorheesville is where the D&H Albany main used to cross the Selkirk Branch. Rail was still in place but the diamonds were long since removed. The Wheelman got his smart phone hooked up to Ken Buckman's scanner feed and he also set up a Wi-Fi "airport" in the car for Fiddler and I to get access for our IPod's. We saw about 3 or 4 trains at "VO" before calling it a night.

The next morning we headed down the River Line, not far from the motel. The weather was cold and breezy so hypothermia was going to be near and rain was coming in. We planted ourselves in New Baltimore at an overpass and waited. It was a moderate wait and we got a visit from a NYDOT sign crew who wondered who these crazy people were. They chatted with us as they worked by "Fiddler" and later by me and the "Wheelman". Luckily they moved on before their truck and flashing lights could invade this photo. That's "Fiddler" in the distance on the road. The train turned out to be northbound Q161.

We moved along after this train and soon heard a Q2?? headed at us before we got far south. A U-turn caught us up to the train but it beat us to the old spot. We followed it until Route 9w climbed over CP SK. The train had long since slowed and stopped. Q161 was still waiting it's turn to go through the junction. Everyone was held up for a welding crew working on a switch in the middle of everything as it turned out. A westbound Boston line autorack train was waiting too and it was the first one to head through SK as seen on the right.

After plenty of waiting we saw the welding crew go back to work, so nothing would move for a while. We thought it was time to move on. We decided that we'd head in the direction of Saratoga, via Mechanicsville. None of us had done more than drive by in the old days after the yard had been removed, so we didn't know our way around. But, it's hard to hide tracks and a little study of the map gave us ideas where to find the Mechanicsville yard. We knew exactly where we were when we encountered XO Tower. We checked out the new track arrangements and the old yard area, at least all we could legally. The new intermodal ramp had two yellow, four-wheel, winch type loaders ready to go. The area was full of NS construction equipment building trackwork. Not much to photograph but enough to confirm that something big was happening.

From this point we moved on to Saratoga Springs. The idea was to see the Saratoga and North Creek Ry. tourist operation and hopefully their recently acquired ex-BAR BL-2. No joy on BL-2's but we saw plenty of other things. Amtrak #69 to Montreal was headed to town so we moved to the depot after a tour of the area. There the S&NC was still running "Polar Express" excursions and today's 6pm departure was getting ready at the depot area. We also had some time to check out the other equipment parked at the other end of the depot. Before long #69 strolled in on the main track and the passengers ventured into the cold to board. I had to get another shot of the steam era signals left over from the D&H and the 8-39B painted in a neo-D&H scheme for the S&NC. At the other end of the platforms was the "Polar Express". The train was a mix of former MARC, Alaska and other equipment with several full domes. A bunch must have come from the SLRG and still had their lettering. The head end was worth the trip though. This was the Arizona Eastern E8 unit. The CPU (Caterpillar?) was working hard. As the fiddler and I approached the head end the crew tested the lights. That included the fully working Mars light, which I managed to catch too well in the photo.

The weather was turning colder, grayer and rain soon began to come down. We decided to head over to Amsterdam and the Mohawk Sub. The former D&H was awfully quiet to bother with. With flood damage and other things in the way we simply moved over to Fonda and CP 188. We sat in the rain for a while and caught 3 trains. The signal bridges looked like they won't be around much longer so I took my shots to catch them in the scene. The new signals were in place but turned away. Some of us had been here years before with Ken Buckman who lives about 10 miles away (sorry we didn't call Ken!). The spot was fine until the light gave out so we moved to the courthouse in Fonda. Amtrak was due in a while so we waited it out. The rain was quite miserable but the "video duo" got their "3 seconds of video" after all the wait. It looked good and it was a few more than three seconds. The day was pretty much done. We did an express run down the thruway to W. Coxsachie and had dinner at Reds. Nice seafood place with lots of local character.

Our final day meant we packed the cars and "Fiddler" trailed along since he'd head south when we headed west. We started to follow a southbound down the River Line. It apparently got stopped around Athens. We kept going to Catskill and found the big trestle there with a good place to park and view trains on the bridge. It turned out to be good for a cloudy day. The morning sun would normally be in our face. We caught two northbounds and a southbound before we called it good.

Catskill turned out to be a neat spot. We had a good view of the entire trestle and good scanner warning. Northbounds set off a detector nearby at MP 110 and they had to blow for crossings. I wanted to show the arched road bridge and muddy water on the first shot and then the length of the trestle on the second. The third with the southbound was just a plain old silhouette. The final shot is through the trestle to an old narrow gauge bridge. That line turned out to be a "Rip Van Winkle" line out to the Catskill mountains.

We crossed the Rip Van Winkle Bridge to the other side of the Hudson River and saw an Amtrak or two pass. We were generally headed to the State Line Tunnel on the Boston line but poking around toward Castleton too. As it turned out we saw the tail end of a local in the town of Hudson. It was stopped but before we got very far we heard it move. So we gave chase to see where it was headed. The Wheelman got us ahead of it and we bailed out of the car for a fast grab shot. It turned out to be an SD60 widecab on the point and looking the other way I saw the Iron Horse Bar. We'd just stumbled into an old Railpace article. Well I recovered fast enough to grab the shot at the top of the page. I don't know what the video will look like since there was no time for tripods.

We decided to hunt down the destination of this local. We seemed to recall the articles enough to know it was a dead end branch but where? We eventually found the ADM milling plant at the end of the line. After the returned to town we headed down to see what Amtrak had to offer at the depot. It was windy and cold so I hid in the depot after finding good angles to shoot from. Fiddler drove down a bit to a good vantage point and Videoman posted himself by the overpass. The southbound was first. Then a wait for the northbound. The last southbound was minutes after that. That last one was a lucky shot from inside the depot where I was watching the proceedings with no intention of shooting. The old winch derrick was in the old warehouse yard across the street. CSX was using he yard for MOW equipment and the winch apparently had use recently for a crossing gate mechanism. The yard area was full of cool old building from the era of water transportation and rail freight houses. If it was a nice warm day it might have been worth exploring.

Onward to State Line Tunnels. We grabbed sandwiches in Hudson and headed to Chatham to meet up with the Boston Line. We paused across the street from the depot and listened to the scanner to see if anything was moving. Nothing. So we headed east. We only got to the edge of town where we heard Q425 call a signal. We had remarked about how cool it would have been to catch a train in town so the Wheelman took us back to the depot. We didn't have tons of time but enough to set up where we wanted to. Pretty good luck once again. I managed to get that classic belltower in the shot. I think the Videoman had the same idea further down the line.

From here we headed to State Line Tunnels where we used up the rest of the light but didn't see anything moving. Besides it was getting really windy and hypothermia was close by. We bid farewell to the Fiddler and headed east to Worcester Union Station for a "summit". Skull met us at the old "Amshack" parking lot where we mostly stayed in our cars and shot the breeze. Of note was the suggestion that we grab dinner before leaving. Skull took us to Coney Island Hot Dogs. Another great local institution and not too hard to find from the station. Those great dogs (with sauce, mustard and onions, yum!) certainly got us home in good shape!

Another HAPT adventure in the history books.


BC

Rumford Line Maintenance

Last week the town of Peru has been humming along the Pan Am right-of-way with the varied tasks of a tie gang. The shot above was taken on Oct. 24th, early in the proceedings. Apparently the train spent the day spreading out the ties over about 3 miles from this point back towards Portland. A day or two afterwards other machinery showed up and the same spot hosted all manner of track vehicles, workers and the like. The spot is right across from the former Peru depot and the siding is Dixfield Siding - East.

Each morning for the rest of the week, around 7:30am, the area was crowded with workers arriving and machinery warming up. The crossing signals (behind me) naturally lit up with all the movement and I managed to be headed to work on Wednesday just as a flagman of sorts began to wave traffic through. I would have gotten out for another follow-up photo but nearby and just across the Androscoggin River is a DOT project to replace the Rt. 2 Webb River bridge so traffic in the area was murder the same week.

Wouldn't you know it. After 19 years of commuting through this very place, the only photo I have ever gotten of a live train in this area was at this same spot (though looking the other way) featuring the exact same unit, in the same paint scheme, on point almost exactly one-year before. See prior post.

BC

Altoona Recreation Department Again

18G passes the soon to be replaced Alto Tower in Altoona, PA.

(Latest Draft 1/15/11)

Thanks to Christopher Columbus and his sailing the ocean blue, I had a three day weekend. Thanks to my school district and its falling short of money, I had a furlough day to add to it. What better idea than to call some Pennsylvania friends and head to Altoona for some escape.


I started this expedition on Thursday 10/13 by driving straight from work to Southington, CT in order to get some miles behind me. On Friday my day started by driving to the Reading, PA area in order to pick up the "Fiddler". On the way out of town we stopped by the Railroad House Restaurant in Sinking Spring to eat and watch for trains. Not much happening but we didn't get far once we finished lunch. We stopped at the old depot in Wernersville to catch a couple of trains. My first shot of the trip was this bad grab shot of a westbound ethanol empty. The shot was mainly gates and other junk. The next turned out to be a high hood GP38 leading a local by the steelworks of the platform. Not bad. I got a few shots of the steel platform structure and we moved on. Our plan was to follow the old "Middle Division" to Altoona. While that's what we ended up doing, we ran into serious traffic congestion around Harrisburg, some of which seemed to be related to the next day's football game at Penn State in State College, about 100 miles away. We exited the main highway and headed for Newport to stop by the local park, a previous trip's stop. While it's not too picturesque for still photography, it's wide open for video of fast freights. It was growing dark for me but we still had much railroad to follow. As it turned out, it was homecoming in Newport and our egress was blocked by the front of a parade. Fiddler did some video work as I waited, no doubt to add color to his shows.

We continued on to now familiar stops at Front Royal, Mifflin, and a few more. Eventually we landed at the Amtrak station in Lewistown. This turned out to be a hopping place. The local fans have been maintaining the old building and Amtrak was sharing space. Other fans and families were in the area watching the trains. It was a nice place to stop and we chatted with plenty of folks as we listened to the scanner. We saw plenty of rail action and heard the unusual symbol "294", which looked like a detour of some sort.

Eventually we had to move on toward Altoona. I called our friend in Altoona, "The Guide", and arranged for the next day. We also ended up chasing an ethanol train which we had seen earlier. We could catch up to its "FRED" from time to time but it stayed out of our reach until the route broke off past Huntington.

On Saturday morning our small crew left the exciting confines of Motel 6 - Altoona and headed downtown to see what was happening. "The Guide" was driving and had a pretty good idea what was moving. Our best shot was to head over to Brickyard Crossing. There is where we caught the helpers on 25Z. The 65J trash train came along after a short wait and eb helpers gave us something to look at for another minute. (above left).

Soon thereafter we continued on to the ledges at the local sportsman's club downgrade from Horseshoe Curve. There we encountered an empty coal train going west (left) and a 36A auto rack train going east under the signal bridge (right). The string of auto racks included a fairly well graffittied P&W car. The two oddball shots way above left show the coal train changing the new signals

The Guide had an idea that we would see quite a group of trains through town. It would also give us a chance to photograph some action when the light was right at Alto Tower. Not knowing how much longer Alto would be in operation, or even located in its present spot, made the visit even better. The photo of Amtrak 04T shot at the right was made on this part of the return voyage. From here we headed up to Slope Interlocking to catch what would be a meet of sorts. A newly acquired ex-UP SD60 was part of the westbound 21Q, which stopped to pick up a rear helper at Alto. We also caught the eastbound 18N autorack passing the signals at Slope.






From our overpass vantage point at Slope we decided to dash up the hill. We looked over the usual haunts in Gallitzin and headed for the Rt. 53 bridge in Cresson. We got a quick look at 21Q which met us there and then 10N came along for this helper end shot on track 1 from the bridge. (right) A group of New Jersey fans drove down to track level so the Fiddler and I walked down behind them. There we were able to get a nice sunny view of the decaying steel highway bridge and soon to be gone signal bridge. 12G came along and gave us some great sun angles to go with the rusty props. The helpers were producing some dramatic shadows and sun. (right)




We moved on rapidly and caught the 22w and 11v at the east portals of the tunnels. After lunch we headed west for Cassandra. We avoided downtown Cresson on this trip because the town was celebrating some form of heritage days and the track area was crowded with activity. Boy did we catch plenty of action at the overlook. Plenty of fans were on hand too. The Guide knew some of these folks from his days as an actual guide and some were local fans. It was fun hearing the scanner action in surround sound stereo! Here we caught Eb helper, 17g, 21e, 056t high/wide with heavy equipment, 21j, 650 coal from Sonman's, 294 detour? Intermodal and 11j.








The light was beginning to give out a bit and The Guide knew we still had some trains coming. It was tough to get away from Cassandra though. We finally found a gap in the trains and headed to Lilly. We barely had enough time to set up under the bridge. 21m and 20Q passed while we were there. Fiddler took time to shoot some commentary for his videos. We headed east and caught 20Q again at the Rt. 53 bridge. Amtrak 07T. As can be seen in the photos on the left, the shadows were getting long. O7T had the Kitchi Gammi Club pullman car on the tail end.


It was time to call it a day so we headed to town for dinner. The Fiddler and I traditionally take The Guide and his wife out to dinner when we're in town. It's always an enjoyable way to spend the evening. We went to one of their regular Italian restaurants in eastern Altoona, the third one I've tried out in the city.

On Sunday morning after walking to breakfast at Denny's, the three of us headed to town again. We decided to take advantage of yet another bright morning to photograph Alto again. We pulled up in time for the 18g which turned out to be to "cover photo" at the top of the page. The operator came out to the fence for a quick chat before we all had to move on. The Guide moved the car to the other end of the bridge while Fiddler and I went up top to catch the "Cove local" CB60 and 25Z. The local, heading out to Hollidaysburg, was led by
5901, one of two recently built GP22ECO's rebuilt from GP38AC's (according to "AltoonaWorks"). It's built to operate with road slugs. This time it is trailing two GP38-3's.

Before we left town we went over to the turntable at Juniata to see what strange beasts were lurking. Nothing really super unusual but some oddities were there for sure. The first thing that hit our eye was the Sandersville switcher. A closer look revealed a CSX hybrid unit which may have been assembled recently. Finally, among the other units was a mate for the GP22ECO's, an NS GPTEB unit. This is one of two road slugs built here by EMD/NS. (according to "NSDash9.com")







Once again we elected to head up the hill and down the other side. First stop was a quick shot of 25Z at Lilly, this time from on top of the bridge. (left) We were headed in the general direction of South Fork where the SD80MAC's tend to hang out. We made a stop at CP-W, the far end of the siding out of South Fork. Here there was once one of those famous Pennsy "fly-overs" to allow access without crossing over the whole railroad. You can still trace out most of the embankments and abutments. Westbound train 227 came along in good sun for the head end and helpers. In the shadows came the C90 local featuring 5 SD80MAC's lite on the way to Cresson.


At this point we thought it best to head into town where the light was better for eastbounds. The Guide thought we might soon have a flurry of activity and that was a better place to catch it. 22W, a helper wb, and W6A (autoracks extra 36a) obliged us.



Our next stop is a relatively private location where the owner allows The Guide to use when someone's around. It's an old county road steel bridge that allows a farmer to access his land. We pulled out the lunch cooler and had a nice chat with the owner in the process of waiting. We got really lucky here. 12g, Rail grinder eb Loram 311, 37a and M0N graced us with their presence. 36A had some nice pipe loads up front and the Loram rig came out of hiding.

We had to deliver Fiddler to the Amtrak station for his ride home so we had to move back toward Altoona. We parked over at the shopping center and used the bridges to get to the depot. I had no idea just how many steps and detours that meant. You cross the big bridge and then you cross the street to the depot. Then from the depot you climb steps to get over the street and back down to the platform. I guess it made sense to some engineer who couldn't move tracks or the road on a small budget. Parking isn't great either.

Anyway we delivered Fiddler in time for his ride east. The tail end of his train had a returning "Kitchi Gammi Club" private car.

The Guide and I used the rest of our light between Slope and Brickyard Crossing. Slope turned into another session where we couldn't leave because there were too many trains. 13G (helpers both ends), 64J (trash), N0N (ethanol tanks), AMK,
I0T, 294, and 23m. There was a triple meet in there somewhere.







The last shot is an intermodal passing under the signal bridge at Brickyard Crossing. This was the end of the day and the end of my voyage. It was time for pizza.


BC


L to R: Fiddler, Guide and Me.