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