Worcester to Old Saybrook 6/27-28/11

This was to be a trip to visit the P&W during the work week, since we normally visit the area on weekends when the line is quiet. It didn't turn out the way we intended. We did not photograph the P&W but ended up seeing it in action in odd places or in the dark. The mission went well despite this and three of us had a heck of a good time wandering around the countryside in search of trains.

The DT&I Fan and I left Maine on Monday afternoon with a Motel 6 reservation in Westborough, MA. We also had a RailPace article on the P&W and DeLorme maps for CT and MA. Add in a cell phone connection to Skull, and that's about all the plan we left Maine with.

As usual we met Skull at the Worcester depot. Apparently we had missed the Wheelman and his wife by about an hour as they were headed to New Jersey. [They live only a mile up the road from me.] Railfanning with the Wheelman is a rare treat now that he travels the world working on computer systems.

We arrived somewhere near 5:30pm, before the first outbound commuter run - easily deduced by the fact that there was no place to park except for one illegal spot under the I-290 bridge. Space opened up once the first outbound train arrived from Boston though so I moved to a better spot. This first "purple train" sported a common F40 so I didn't get out the camera for it. The second one a bit later was led by the newish MPI unit #011 and I did have to photograph that one. In between, a csx EB Q164 intermodal arrived with "the distinctive sound of an SD60M" on the point.

Aside from the T, the CSX yard switcher was placing the evening's outbound trains and moving some cars down for the P&W. We had a bit of a lull coming at us so we left to get dinner across town. A couple of noted P&W fans passed as we returned after some dinner at a local diner. Henry B. and Doug heard our horn and stayed around a while. As we watched, a newly visible stone extra and Q422 (normally a morning train) met by the layover yard. Here is Skull's report (edited in team tags for space):

Suprise Super Summit In Worcester,Mass. CSX Boston Sub. 6/27/11

Q-264 @ 14:53 4750 - 7629 set off 11 autoracks for P&W RR. LV @ 15:50.

X-091 @ 15:25 5357 - 7686 - 16 - 558 - 577.Out of P&W RR with train around 40 cars.

Q-436 @ 15:40 567 - 593 85 cars.

GRWO @ 16:05 3905(S) - 2006(N) Lite Power Off Gardner Branch. (P&W RR).

Loaded Stone Train @ 16:15 8084(W) - 30 loaded stone cars, 2755(W) - 8831(E).

P-517 @ 16:20 1036 - 6 cars cabcar 1515.

P-526 @ 16:31 Cabcar 1515 - 6 cars 1036 pushing (Boston).

P-519 @ 17:25 1068 - 6 cars cabcar 1705.

P-530 @ 17:40 Cabcar 1705 - 6 cars 1068 pushing (Boston).

Q-164 @ 18:10 8757 - 5420 - 8867 (Had a P&W Setoff).

P-523 @ 18:30 011 - 8 cars cabcar 1701.

Q-422 @ 20:00 598 - 564 29 cars for P&W RR.

P&W Stacks Were Brought Up To CSX @ 20:30 By 2007(P&W) picked Up By Q-115.

P-533 @ 20:45 1034 - 6 cars cabcar 1521.

Q-115 @ 21:20 5340 - 482 - 206.

A surprise summit came together today by accident, I was off when old friend Paul "BEEFCAKE" Apollo, HAPT/W.F.P.T.,

called, He was heading down to New Jersey and met me at the Worcester Amtrak Station, Then Carl Harrison, HAPT, and Brad Conant, HAPT, dropped by for an overnight 2 day railfanning adventure. Henry Bourdeau, V.F.P.T. /W.F.P.T., and Dougie, V.F.P.T. , came by to join in the fun. Special thanks to Gary "THE BOSS" Young, W.F.P.T., for posting heads up to fellow railfans.It was like the old days when the old "Amshak" in Worcester,Mass was the "CENTER OF THE UNIVERSE". We could feel the spirits of Doug Keenan,George Bishop and Ken Putalis, A great day of railfanning. As I'm going up to "L.A." next week starting July 5th thru Sunday July 10th. So "THE GUARDIANS" will be back at Danville Junction.

Then for my H.A.P.T. buddies the T sent one of the new MPI units on P-523. Amtrak P-448 is 4.75 Hrs.Late.

Till Next Time Railfans.

Tuesday:

The morning consisted of productively using our time until Skull could meet us after some morning work. Let's say we got stymied by construction zones, traffic, filled parking lots and a closed hobby shop. We were to meet Skull at Westborough's MBTA depot after 11am so we decided to just go there at 10am. We simply paid for a slot in the commuter lot to leave a car there for the day.

Upon arrival at Westborough an eastbound CSX freight went through as I was stuffing dollar bills into the parking fee slot. I guess I could have dropped everything and taken a photo but it's a challenging place to get a photo and we're bound to see another - right?

Lucky for us, an EB power swap came through on the heels of the freight and a token T train came through a bit later. Then, nothing.

Funny thing though. I noticed a car pulled up to the depot area, and judging by the scanner sounds coming from it, it had to be a local railfan. Eventually the guy got out to toss some trash. Well, that fan turned out to be none other than Dave Jodoin (W.F.P.T.). I hadn't seen him in years and he did recognize Carl. He works practically next door and often hangs out at the depot at lunch. I guess I vaguely knew the details but didn't put it all together. And time really flys! He's had the job over 8 years and I don't think he had it last time I saw him. (I could be wrong.) He had to return to work just before Skull arrived.

We took off toward Connecticut by way of the Grafton and Upton RR at Grafton. The place sure looked lively compared to the last time I saw it well over 10 years before. I gather from the quick look I took on the web that the changes are from the last two years or so. We only saw the CF7 #1500 you see here but at least that was the one unit I wanted to see. Similar to Alco's character, those unique looking CF7's mean there's some sort of balance in the railroad universe. (at least to me) The caboose is apparently former Maine Central #646 according to information at this link. Interesting that it is a converted box car. That may have to be a modelling project one day.

We pretty much made a bee line for Old Saybrook. We did make detours to check out Plainfield yard and have lunch at Five Guys in East Lyme. As we approached Old Saybrook we temporarily left I-95 to avoid a traffic jam near the Rocky Neck State Park exit. We quickly found a way down Rt. 156 that took us by Amtrak's NEC tracks in Old Lyme. The others noted that there was a spot next to the tracks without a fence in South Lyme. I was busy driving and didn't catch the meaning of the words. We should have stopped to check it out. A few minutes later and down the road a P&W eastbound stone train zipped by. We didn't even have time to turn around let alone traverse the 35mph countryside to catch up. Who knows if we would have caught it at the fenceless area anyway. We might have checked it and left while still missing the stone train - normal railfan luck.

Anyway, below is a collection of photos taken at the Old Saybrook depot. Most are self-explanatory to railfans. I just love the McGuiness style NH logos on anything and the SLE just looks good with them scattered around. The Cartoon Network ad graphics wrap on the "amtube" looked as if it were graffiti at first, so I'm guessing the graphics aren't aging well. (I have no idea how old the wrap is and maybe it was meant to be that way?) I also like a serving of "Swedish Meatballs" and the religious experience of 100+ mph Acela's at close range. We had a couple of two-way meets and thought we were going to have a triple, but the high green was just very well advanced. Twice we saw an SLE and Regional at the depot at the same time but an Acela Express still had to flash through before SLE could depart on the first occasion. No triple.

Other than hours of driving, that was the end of our railfanning day. It as about as good as it gets. Friends, trains and good weather! We need a beer commercial for that.

BC

Central Maine Solstice Road Trip

The DT&I Fan and I took advantage of the extended daylight hours to make an wide sweeping tour of central and coastal Maine to check out various rail sites, active and not. We missed the Solstice by one day (June 22) but it was close enough and the weather was nearly perfect.

Our first real stop was Brunswick to check on the Downeaster's progress. There was a nearly completed "Brunswick Station" shopping complex and a crane working on the platforms. After a quick look we moved on downeast along Rt. 1.
http://www.amtrakdowneaster.com/expansion-project

At Wiscasset we turned north on 218 to Alna Center and the WW&F at Cross Rd. Here I finally dug out a camera. I ended up sticking with the digital "110 Instamatic" for the day. We had just gotten out of the truck to look around when a local volunteer stopped by to see what we were up to. We ended up having a nice chat. He told us a bit about their operations and the latest restorations. It was a pleasure to talk to someone who enjoyed what he was doing.

The neatest piece of news came when I asked about the boiler that was sitting in the yard. That's the black tank next to the ubiquitous blue tarp. I had noticed that the frame underneath was about the size of a locomotive. The local informed us that this was locomotive #9 and it is the only original WW&F loco on the property. In fact a full scale portrait of it is on the roof of the house next door. He also informed us that all the parts are ready to assemble back into a locomotive. It will be cool to see the finished unit in action on it's home rails again. That will be a fine excuse to drive over there again.

I asked about how far they can go with their present plans. They have about 2 miles of roadbed to Head Tide to build on before they encounter another road crossing. That's the plan for now. He speculated about how neat it would be to go the other way to Wiscasset and rebuild the piers. Of course, he also mentioned that he'd like to set up a sign behind Reds Eats with photos of the old piers in the meantime. The second photo shows the current end of the line at Sheepscot station. No crossing means no F.R.A. compliance needed. Imagine the additional D.E.P. and E.P.A. involvement with restoring the extensive piers in Wiscasset a few miles beyond and you see why it stops here, for now. http://www.wwfry.org/


Onward to Rockland and the Maine Eastern. We stopped off at the yard and then the depot. We found an intriguing extended vision caboose tied up next to the plow. It was in good shape and in primer paint. We didn't have any idea what it's heritage was. The normal 3 car train and FL-9 was sitting by by depot but all was quiet. We wondered who built the observation car originally.

We thought we should take a look at the end of the line where Dragon transloads cement to barges. A couple of three packs of cement cars were sitting at the loading facility. It's well marked and fenced in so we merely took a couple of shots and moved on.


From Rockland we set out for lunch and the Belfast & Moosehead Lake RR. Although we really didn't want to go into Belfast since they lifted the rails, we did go to the edge of the township known as City Point to see the City Point Central Railroad Museum. Though we limited our visit to the parking lot, from there you can see some cool stuff, most notably 70 tonner #51. There were samples of cabooses and rolling stock around, and even samples of structures. The City Point depot is the former MEC depot from Corinna. I noted the former MEC cabooses built by International Car, one standard and one extended vision. Since Atlas makes both in N-scale, I wanted detail shots of both for future tweaks.


We left City Point headed cross country toward Brooks. We found lots of empty tracks and eventually found the Brooks depot, home of the Brooks Preservation Society. They have 70 tonner #53, a caboose, a couple of passenger cars and the open air car from the old B&ML. They had a schedule of excursions posted and the rails betrayed some use.

Brooks was the station where "Maine Two Footers" author Linwood Moody began working for the railroad. Plus it's just a prime example of small town depots. The runaround track behind the building looked like if just barely met minimum FRA standards, but it works.
http://www.brookspreservation.org/


We turned our attention toward Searsport. That meant going back toward Belfast to cross the bay on Rt. 1. Access to the old BAR facilities has dropped to near nil now and nothing was moving anyway, so we didn't shoot any photos. In the past we found old relics to photograph and have even ended a train chase here once with Joey "Purple Trains" Kelly. But today the pickins were pretty slim. On to the depot.

The old depot has been moved over to Rt. 1 and turned into an ice cream parlor. Of course that meant we had to partake and support such an enterprise. Lately they've expanded to include a former "Doodlebug" RPO car as a hamburger stand. A crew was still building the deck for it, but it was well painted to match the depot. Of course this begged the question of who's unit this was once upon a time? I certainly didn't have a clue unless the BAR or MEC had it as a maintenance car, which makes the most sense.

From Searsport we ventured up Rt. 1 to Bucksport, crossing the new cable stay bridge for our first time. From the dockside park at the former MEC Bucksport depot, the bridge and Fort Knox are clearly visible. The bridges' silhouettes almost look like a single bridge from this vantage point too. You can also see the present end of the line serving the large Verso Paper mill. It wasn't that long ago that yard tracks extended to the depot.

The yard area is pretty neat if you are into industrial facilities. We found the switcher working alongside route 15 and you could see the bulk of the yard and turntable from the road. The place was full of cars of all types. Just beyond the mill, where the switches begin, a couple of MOW shacks were set up. You could still see the old speeder doors on one of them. The compact scene was spotted on the fly by Carl who had to swing the truck around to check it out.

We followed the line to Brewer but didn't know enough to dig very deep around former customers like Eastern Paper or Norchem, so we headed to Northern Maine Jct. At that point we saw about 3 PAR units in the usual places from the parking lot. As we headed out, the scanner came alive. Apparently PONM had just arrived and was parked just beyond our view from the parking lot. It was buried so we didn't pursue it. As we left to head over to the LMS side of the vast junction, we also heard a WASJ symbol. It was tying down at MP 50 or so. We had no clue what it was for a second. I was thinking signal skip and St. Johnsbury for some reason. As it turns out this was a train that Skull had mentioned to me on the phone the day before: a "hotshot" from Waterville to St. John. Via scanner, we did hear it was re-crewed and moving a few hours later. But, we weren't going to head over Old Town just to scope out another "Guilford" train that wasn't moving.

As we headed south on I-95 we decided to head into Pittsfield. This area is a former home of "The Fiddler" and a far-fetched and unlikely home to some fond memories around the old depot. It was here in 1987, when I had just moved here that the DT&I fan (visitor rather than resident then) and I dropped by to visit the depot. A local asked us if we were there to see the passenger train. Not having any idea what he was talking about, we asked about it and stuck around for what turned out to be a GRS inspection train. What luck! That gave us some good memories to start off with.

Quite a few years later, as we began to know some railfans in the area, it turned out that we knew quite a few with a Pittsfield connection. A local historian/railfan asked the Wheelman to put on a slide show in the depot and the feat was repeated a year or so later. Of course we returned for a visit or two to the Fiddler's as well.

The next logical stop after Pittsfield is Waterville. However, we didn't quite get there. We were following the old MEC down route 100/11 when the scanner betrayed a Form D for the Sappi local beyond CPF 110 to go up the branch. We were already past Clinton so we were near enough to catch it and there was plenty of daylight left. Clouds were beginning to close on the distant horizon but they might hold off for a chase to Skowhegan.

As it turned out we were able to beat the train to CPF 110 in Fairfield and get set up for photos. We then headed for the crossing near the I-95 interchange. There I had to dodge a lot of poison ivy at that spot but it was pretty photogenic given the location. We got way ahead to the crossing in Shawmut. We had a pretty good wait there as a mom told her kids about the approaching train. She thought one had just been through already.

Since the train makes the screaming speed of maybe 10mph on the branch, the hardest part of shooting pictures is waiting for the train to catch up. We were easily able to get ahead to the Goodwill Hinckley School. Just to the north along Rt. 201 is a scenic little bridge where we pulled over for another wait. The sun was nearly ideal for this spot. I should have used my good camera, but not with a "turbo G" unit on the front. (I'll regret that in about 30 years!)

The next stop was the angled crossing before getting to the mill property. This Rt. 201 crossing was a little over 3 Omya tankers long and provided a pretty good view of the train. A shorter private crossing next to this one seemed to be a good place for a yard worker to check off the incoming cars too. I was on the wrong side of the train when it passed so as I walked back I noticed that the slow moving 54 car train had really backed up the highway traffic. I could see cars lined up nearly a mile off toward the mill. We left the train at that point and headed south.

We saw a string of cars pulled through the Waterville yard office area when we arrived there. Sure enough it moved after we stopped in the lot. A cut was left behind in the yard and the rest tacked onto a future NMPO along with two "turbo G" units. We got to watch a few minutes of switching anyway. Since the crew bailed out for a break, we knew it would not move any time soon, so we bailed out too.

The trip home was pretty uneventful except for a stop at the Augusta Amato's for dinner. We'd seen a lot for one day. Not a bad catch either for essentially a "recon" run. The scanner was pretty much dead heading south through the usual detour to Leeds Jct. However, this is when we heard the dispatcher talking to someone. It turned out he was talking to trains around Bangor, including a now moving WASJ. We still had some daylight as it was only about 7:30pm so we thought we see if SLR's 393 was stirring yet. No luck there but in the process we heard a NMPO (?) come to life (re-crew?) at Rumford Jct. We ended the day watching this train rumble through Danville Jct. By this time the cloud cover was thickening enough that photos were not possible but it was still light enough to see (about 8:15pm). The power was two 500's sandwiching the 601.

Not a bad way to finish a very good day.



BC

June Photo Worth A Thousand Words

As has become customary this time of year, I get to go on trips to far off places with little time for railfanning. However, I always manage to find some odd tidbits anyway, this time in a very unusual place; The National Zoo in Washington D.C. 0n May 26th.

The tidbit in question is one of 22 "Station Eagles" on the outside of Pennsylvania Station in New York City. You can see the additional details on the sign below.

This particular "find" was totally unexpected to say the least. I don't know what possessed me to look at the sign but I'm glad I did. Once I discovered what it was I had to give it a bit more examination. You definitely would not find such craftsmanship like that on a modern building. The stone is in very good condition given its age and the fact that it has probably been outside in the weather most of its life. The "Standard Railroad of the World" was likely feeling as if it would last forever if it had the financial power to post 22 of these around one important station.

Although it was appropriately placed outside the bird building, odds are good that I might have missed it had the kids not been nearby. Divine intervention perhaps? (It was the Catholic Forensic League's national tournament after all that brought us here.) Still, upon examination of the photo, I cannot help but think that it was the inspiration for a Jim Henson muppet character.

BC