A Tale of Two Worcesters

I had to go to  a site visit in New York for a gas pipeline project, and decided to make the most of it by bringing my camera along. I would be in the region between Schenectady and Oneonta for a few days.  Naturally thoughts about the D&H began dancing in my head.

 Originally scheduled for the Thursday and Friday before Memorial Day weekend, the trip got cancelled after I departed due to the heavy rains that swamped Maine over the holiday weekend.. I didn't get flagged down to turn back until I was handy to Yarmouth. As luck would have it, it was close to noon time,and I knew that a Brunswick-bound Downeaster would be nearby.  I headed to Yarmouth Junction with only minutes to spare.  Yarmouth Junction is not an especially photogenic locale (I haven't had a reason to go there in over 15 years) but it has the noteriety of being the last active railroad diamond in Maine. I was amazed how grown up the foliage is to the poiut that the classic view from the SW quandrant is not feasible anymore.  It was nice to see a revenue passenger train clipping along Maine Central property at a respectable speed!

so the trip was rescheduled to the following Tuesday, which meant that I had to sacrifice the only good weather day of the holiday for travel.  I was therefore determined to make lemonade from that particular lemon!  My first stop was Worcester, Mass, where I explored some photo angles.  Arriving in early afternoon, I took up a position on the 5th floor of the Union Station parking garage which is located SW across the tracks from the station.  I think the sun would be good there all day.  Being a holiday there were no cars in the facility.  The westbound Lake Shore Limited oblingingly came by and posed before heading west. This is the view

The Lake Shore arrives then departs

 The P&W was dead and I sensed that nothing would run soon on CSX so I pushed on to the west, being interested in revisiting some old D&H (now CP) locations west of Albany.  But not before admiring the old Osgood Bradley beaux arts building next to the the parking garage.  You may recall that O-G built numeous passenger cars for New England roads including the well known "American Flyer" coaches for NH, B&M and BAR.

Two hours later, as I exited the NY Thruway onto I-88 at Duanesburg, a southbound CP freight thundered by, going about 40 MPH.  What luck!  With no time to scout, I cruised down I-88 to Central Bridge to look for a decent setting with afternoon light.  I found one on a residential neighborhood hill, looking back to a grain dealer no longer served by the railroad. Aftr 15 minutes or so the train arrived with its 2 C44W's leading a GP-38  and probably 70 cars of mixed merchandise

The chase was on!  At this point the train was climbing Howes Cave hill so I knew I had a bit more time to check out access points. I was amazed how muich the foliage has encrouched here since the 1990's as well!  Heres a shot taken about 1 mile east of  Howes Caverns. Despite the grade the train was making a healthy 30 MPH. The sound of the non turbo EMD meshed well with the GE's

For the next hour I escorted this train south hopping on I-88 for a few exits to get well ahead, then backtracking toward the train on NY-7 which was mostly on the westward (sunny) side of the railroad.  The intervening grade at Richmondville also slowed the train and bought me some time as well.

Coming and going at East Worcester (the other Worcester!). The siding here is usually a good place for meets as it is the only one until Oneonta, 25 miles further south.  No meet today though; at this point the train is descening from Richmondville hill.

that innocuous pond reflecting the train is actually the very headwaters of the Susquehanna River.  Note how sunfaded the GP38 is.

a parting shot at Schenevus, from the I-88 exit service road.  If you compare this to the same 1980's shot in Delaware & Hudson In Color, you can appreciate the tree encroachment

I was fortunate to score some trains in the sun, as the next two rain soaked days there wasn't time or suitable lighting for any train pictures.  But on the way home the skies lightened up enough.  Delanson, a small community near Schenectady is where the old Albany Main splits away from the line to Mechanicville.  It's no more than a branch now despite the name.  I waited around and almost departed too soon, when the rain resumed, but then a NS intermodal (probably 23K off Pan Am) came through the heavily signalled interlocking at the last minute.

 

A downpour began again so I took the hint and left. As I approached Albany the skies eased off a bit so I diverted to the Port of Albany, an area I have always wanted to explore.  It is well worth the time if you are in the area! Very "modelgenic".  Kenwood yard is not accesssible other than at a public grade crossing at the north end, but the "good stuff" is along the waterfont and can be navigated without trespassing for the most part.  The south end was rich in grain elevators, bulk terminal, ship-to-shore transloading.  I watched a Cargill switcher jocky BNSF grain cars through the unloader

a 1000 ft away this Albany Port SW was shuttling to and fro

my next stop was a crossing in the midst of a reverse curve along CSX on the former Boston & Albany near Chatham.  I camped there for about 20 minutes until this eastbound came by.  This location offers interesting angles and would provide good sun almost all day

I chased this job east past State Line Tunnel (no picture) before regaining the Mass. Turnpike.  Back at Worcester 90 minutes later, I made another stab at the P&W.  Their engine facility and yard is very cramped and kind of wedgy for photos, other than 3/4 mug shots but I did locate a place to park near their operations center where one has a veiw of the north end of the yard and the junction of the Gardiner, Providence and New London routes, with CSX passing overhead. Next trip, I will have to zero in on that location.  I did take a farewell picture though of this spiffy SD-60 leaser before highballing back to Maine.



Four trains at Wells and other Pan Am adventures

Hi everyone - at Brad's request, I thought  that I'd post this epic day of good luck railfanning.

 

Monday April 15 found me on the road headed for Greenfield Mass for work. At around 1 PM I had to pull off the turnpike to be on a conference call, and as I was near Wells, I decided to take the call along the tracks by the old station, knowing that I would see the two mid day Downeasters that meet at around 1:20 if on time.  However I was not quite expecting the 4-way meet that I witnessed.

 

1:05 POED takes the siding

 

 

1:20 hot on his heels comes Downeaster #684 into the same siding

 

 

1:25 moments later, Portland-bound Downeaster #683 swings by on the main track:

+

 

1:35 - then the icing on the cake  - PAR2 and PAR1 with a very short freight.

 

 

Back on the road, one hour later I touched down at the Bradford MBTA station, just in time for three movements in the space of less than 30 minutes. Evidently I had overtaken #684, as it rolled around the curve past the original depot, just as I was setting up

 

it was followed moments later by an MBTA afternoon local, which made a station stop at 2:43, and then met SEPO with CSX ES-44's, just west of the station

 

 

SEPO passed the station at exactly 2:50, which you may be aware was the exact time of the fateful Boston marathon explosion

 

 

I ended my windsheild tour of the B&M at East Deerfield around 5 PM, exactly as intermodal 22K was arriving from Mechanicville with NS power.  Five of the newly shopped NS SD-40-2's were in good sunlight on the ready tracks, making the yard look more like Roanoke than East Deerfield

 

 

 

the cherry on the sundae came as the final act of the day, when #77 and a GMTX unit eased into position alongside the new NS power. At that point I took my last picture and decided to quit while I was ahead.  Not a bad haul for a net of 2 1/2 hours of random hit-and-run railfanning

 

National Train - or is it 'Rain' - Day

Not much to post here but a couple of new pictures that just happened to be taken on "National Train Day".  We didn't bother to go to any festivities, anywhere.  The closest event of any interest was at the Downeaster Station in Brunswick.  It might have been fun to look over the equipment, but the weather was poor and the equipment was not that new or fascinating to me.  Besides, we wanted to go to an operating session at Brandon Kulik's near Waterville.  This gave us an excuse to trace the middle of District 1. 

We knew there'd be an oil train somewhere and the scanner mentioned RUPO.  What we didn't expect was a parked WAPO or SJPO at 'Roy' on the west end of Leeds Jct.  Apparently all the eastbound traffic stopped it there and time ran out on the crew.  With that former BNSF paint on the HLCX unit staring at us, not to mention the mismatched number boards, we had to stop.  It was re-crewed later in the afternoon. 
We continued to Waterville where this matching blue set of power stopped at the fairly vacant office area and parked for a portrait or two. Not much else stirring at that moment.  We missed the good stuff buried in the yard.


It was getting close to 2pm and time to dash to the operating session when we decided to see if we could see what was on the end of the oil train parked in the yard.  Carl noticed a marker and a small gap in the train as we followed the train down the yard, so we knew they'd already made the split and might leave.  We were just about sure the power was behind the former Keyes Fiber plant so we stopped to looked down the tracks near the road underpass in Fairfield.  OI-1 called District 1 while Carl was out for a look.  We were off to the bridge over the Kennebec with a comfortable but not long wait.

We parked in the middle.  I went for the west end and Carl went for the east end.  I played with my 'throw down' camera on video mode since there was a good place to set it down.  It isn't worth sharing though.

The shots I did get were pretty much pretty much overwhelmed by the overcast weather.  But, bad pictures beat no pictures.  Carl managed to get a boat in his shots.

The passing of the oil train might have been the start of a mad dash to follow except for the crummy weather.  All the 'sludge gray' units on the point sealed the deal.  We headed to the op session.  The CSX power that brought the oil train returned west on WAPO while we were there.  The yard was too full to see them sooner.






After the op session we managed to dodge every train in District 1.  Apparently POWA left 'Pike' (Leeds Jct.) at about the time we got to Augusta.  This put the train out in the boonies while we passed through the area in the rainy darkness.  Another eastbound was clearing Rigby yard  and would not reach our area for who knows how long.  This was at 9:30pm too.  It was just best to call it quits.  Not much was going to be worth the wait at that hour.

BC