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| The Downeaster awaits a 1755 departure for Boston. |
There's nothing like a spring day to give you the urge to get out of the house and explore, even if it's only over to District 1 on Pan Am Railways. Never mind the snow. Today, I did consult a schedule for the Downeaster and found that they would have something departing Brunswick in daylight now that we are in Daylight Savings Time. I headed there after the usual pass through "the Junctions" in Auburn.
I left the house as PORU was getting a Form D to go up the Rumford Branch. They had left a couple of units at Danville Jct. for DJ-1 as near as I could tell from the scanner. I saw the units deep in the yard as I passed through. With nothing else around and the SLR at Lewiston Jct. quiet, I moved on to Brunswick.
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| View of "layover" and wye (Lewiston Lower) from platform. |
Aside from the annoying town of Brunswick itself with one-way streets and tons of traffic, the new station area was pretty quiet. I went to the Hammond Lumber by the Spring St. bridge first to get shots of the trainset in layover. It turned out more interesting than I thought since there was an F40 commemorative unit on the point rather than a standard "cabbage" unit. I did like the old paint scheme too. I didn't get too worked up about the "Shamu" style "mud missile" at the other end.
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| Amtrak "Heritage Unit". Appears to be a full F40, not cabbage. |
Over at the station itself I found plenty of parking and wandered over to the platform. In the process I figured out where the Visitors Center was located and found helpful people around. One of them was a local character I've run into before in the area. Apparently he now counts passengers and otherwise volunteers around the station. I think his nickname was "Cookie" but I may have heard it wrong.
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| New Downeaster facilities in Brunswick. |
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| DJ-1 with 2 more units left by PORU. |
I couldn't see how I'd do much better by waiting another hour for the train to depart. The back-lighting was harsh and I already got the head end from the bridge. So, I reversed course back to "the Junctions". This time my luck was a tad better. RUPO was passing under the turnpike as I arrived so I headed for Danville Jct. from the west end. There I caught DJ-1 and the other two units all assembled by the crossing. Good timing. I got a "two-fer" as RUPO passed. I'm sure I could have stayed longer and watched a few more moves but it was a bit drafty and cool for such things. And, I was parked in quite a muddy spot next to a melting snow pile. No, the "excitement" of Danville Jct. and District 1 could wait for another day when I had the right jacket and more time.
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| RUPO passing DJ-1 at Danville Jct. |
BC
