The complete content, including Bill's reports, follows and will no doubt be revised. This includes a few select photos of mine from Monday to Wednesday. This trip is now an annual ritual for Billy and the HAPT. There are postings going back to the beginnings of this blog, but he's been doing this far longer.
MONDAY JULY 9TH, 2012
After receiving a call from Billy saying that he'd arrived, I set out for Danville Jct. to meet him and Carl. This was near 3pm. On the way I ran into this interesting combination of power in Mechanic Falls. Apparently the SLR South Paris local had some work on the siding and was waiting to proceed. I could see it cross the road in my mirrors after I left. The two switchers are Quebec and Gatineau Ry. and have been on the local lately. We'd return to this train later.
I arrived in Danville in the middle of the passing of the Rumford jobs. RUPO was supposed to pick up a couple of crippled loco's but something just didn't work out and they left without them. A maintainer truck pulled up and the mechanic got to work soon thereafter.
Seeing that there wasn't going to be much more happening for a long time we decided to go after those switchers I spotted earlier. We left vehicles at Billy's favorite "Sleepy Time Motel" and headed over to Lewiston Jct. to begin the trip along the SLR towards South Paris. We took a little time to look at the variety of power sitting around the engine house. Then we were off toward Mechanic Falls and Oxford just to make sure the train hadn't returned yet.
In Oxford, we were traveling down Rt. 26 when the crossing lights lit up near the MP 46 detector. We turned around quickly and set off for a place to catch it. Luckily, traffic was light and we were
able to catch it near "Lashins Auto Salvage" near Oxford. This is along routes 11 and 121 between Mechanic Falls and Oxford. The sun favored us a bit too there. We were able to see the train spread out across the line along the road. The weeds were a bit annoying but tolerable at this point and there was a wide spot to safely pull off the road in front of the salvage yard. The train was moving at a pretty good pace so we had to move right along. It got to Mechanic Falls almost the same time we did but it didn't have to slow down like we did.
Our only option was to catch it beyond the town near the New England Public Warehouse siding east of town. This was enough to give us a chance to line up some kind of shots in the growing shadows of the evening. Thank heavens for digital cameras. This would have been a challenging spot with the old Kodachrome. We were off again once the train passed and we could sneak in one more shot in Poland where the alcohol cars are set out. This time the shadows were too much for my camera but we were well ahead of the train and easily beat it to the crossing. From here it was just a matter of catching at Lewiston Jct. This was easy. The set the cars off deep into the yard and then the units came down toward the engine house.
This turned out to be enough. We headed over to Mario's for supper and called it a day.
TUESDAY: OFF TO WATERVILLE...
I'll start off by using Billy's posting from the listserv's (with his permission).
"We Left Danville Junction after a
coffee stop at Dunkin Doughnuts we headed up to Waterville Yard. As
we arrived in Waterville we saw 52(Maine Central Paint) - 71 - 310 -
374. We then heard a track forman asking for a Form-D to a
"DERAILMENT" on the "East Augusta Running Track"
(LOW ROAD). Brad and I found the site in Vasselboro at Station Hill
Road where I'm told the passenger station was located. We saw 1
covered hopper off the rail leaning to the right. But the crew was
there working hard to rerail it. (Here is the link to Billy's post about
the derailment at Vassalboro.)
We then returned to Waterville Yard
and found POWA Arriving at 12:30 pm with 616(E) - 618(W) -
314(W) - 380(W) - 503(E)
with a decent size train.We then chased
MD-1 (Madison Branch Local) to Oakland, A M.O.W. Crew was working the
area MD-1 arrived at 13:15 with 374*W) - 310(W) 17 cars. ran around
train and went up the Madison Branch Long Hood Forward, as both
engines were facing west. Then Lunch at The Govenors in Waterville.
Both Brad and I had the "Mount Kahtadin Meatloaf Mountain"
with Unsweetened Iced Tea. What a meal ! WOW ! We then were stuffed
and headed back to Danville Junction via Leeds Junction,The Fair
Grounds, Strawberry Ave, to Danville Junction as the scanner came to
life. We found RUPO, with 345(W) - 511 - 512 with 70 cars at 16:35,
DJ-1 was 312(W). We couldn't see the power so we headed to Danville
West.We then chased him to New Gloucester Siding where he passed up
westbound at 17:15. PORU then came out of the siding with "FOREIGN
POWER" in the 2nd slot. power was 376(E) - 3001(GMTX)(E) -
371(W) at 17:20. PORU passed "Black Cat Road" At 18:00.
Tomorrow Brad and I will head south to the Portland area. So we will
be in the area, maybe to Saco Amtrak Station.
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The Next Adventure Begins
Tomorrow.Thanks To Gary "THE BOSS" Young for posting
reports.
Till Next Time Railfans.
Billy Leazer W.F.P.T. / H.A.P.T.
Brad Conant H.A.P.T.
Paul "BEEF CAKE" Apollo
H.A.P.T. / W.F.P.T. (By Cell)
"
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The passing of the Rumford jobs at New Gloucester was way more interesting than usual, probably because Billy was around. Each train had one unusual locomotive.
The meet itself was interesting because the PORU was out of sight and did not pull down toward the crossing until RUPO got closer. Somewhere in the process we noticed that the road stripes were painted since the last train passed so the rails had new paint on them. The crossing was also malfunctioning a bit so the PORU crew flagged their way over the crossing. The paint probably had nothing to do with it and it was gone from the railhead after the first few RUPO cars anyway.
After the PORU crew got onto the main and flagged the crossing they were off to Danville Jct. We had no trouble getting ahead. For such a short distance, the trains never beat us, unless they are OCS's.
At Danville Jct. we took a few minutes to get shots of the former SLR "Yellowjacket" passing over the former SLR diamond area. The shot of it coming into the east end is shot from the former SLR alignment that went over the diamond into the yard. The realigned SLR joins in a switch to my left nowadays. The PAR main now takes the far yard track as seen in the photo.
We couldn't just stop there with so much daylight left. We headed into town to get the train passing over the Androscoggin River. We parked at the Veterans Memorial Park on the Lewiston side of the Longley Memorial Bridge. Billy shot from the park while I stood on the road bridge.
WEDNESDAY JULY 11, 2012; DISTRICT 2
Once again we'll start with Billy's listerv posting...
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"We drove down to Saco to start via
Rigby Yard in South Portland, Which was dead. In Saco at the Amtrak
Station we caught Amtrak "DownEaster" Trains as follows.
Amtk 683 @ 13:05 199 - 4 cars
90220(Cabbage Car) (Portland,ME).
Amtk 684 @ 13:15 Cabbage Car 90213 - 5
cars 21 pushing (Boston/ North Station).
Brad and I then wandered down to
Dover,N.H. and caught as follows.
Amtk 686 @ 15:30 Cabbage Car 90220 - 4
cars 199 Pushing (Boston / North Station).
DO-1 @ 16:10 514(MEC) - 9 cars. To
Dover Yard.
We then headed back North to Rigby Yard
and saw a couple locals switching along with engines parked
515 - 315 - 345 - 511 - 512. Also work
going on at CPF-185 (Royal Junction) signal work.
Lots of miles today but not many
trains.
But a FREE SLURPEE Today, Between 11 and 7 a free
11.7 oz Slurpee, At Seven-11.
FREE, my favorite word !
Till Next Time Railfans"
Billy Leazer W.F.P.T. / H.A.P.T.
Brad Conant H.A.P.T.
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We did all this driving in the hopes of catching SEPO with CSX power, or at least catching something trying to sneak through between the Downeasters. Rigby looked kind of empty with only one set of power so we figured something might sneak through. At least we caught DO-1 in Dover. I'd never done that before.
As it turns out, the power seen here would be important to the next few days, especially the early PAR paint schemed 511. We'd already seen it on RUPO on Tuesday. We'll see it Friday.
Here is a
link to Part 2 on this same site.
BC
