Readville 2016

The usual trip to Marlborough on Dec. 3rd for the annual HUB train show naturally led to the usual trip to Readville.  And, as usual, we saw a few trains of the MBTA and Amtrak variety.  However, this time we got to see the remnants of the very recent bridge replacement over the NEC.  The old pin-truss bridge was sitting on a gravel pad over the Dedham branch and the new bridge was easily seen from the platforms.  The sun was good for this sort of recon but the cold wind soon took away our will to hang around for much longer.

Follow the link to the photos https://www.flickr.com/photos/133256320@N04/shares/J8x7f0

BC

Christmas Time in Waterville

Every Christmas Carl and I wander up to Waterville on a convenient day to see what we can find.  Some years we see a lot, others we see little.  This year we caught a bit of everything.  Click on the Flickr link below to see the photos.

We started off with the B&M heritage unit sitting over by the intermodal pad.  An Eimskip train full of Poland Spring Water was sitting there, apparently loaded and ready, or it had recently arrived and needed to be unloaded.  We took a shot then left.  Nothing else of note around.  We thought we were skunked.  Upon return after the usual loop around the area, we noted that a former Army Humvee sitting by the office was on the move headed to the intermodal pad.  When it was over by the geep it unloaded some guys in safety vests who went to the geep.  The lights came on and the geep moved in our direction.  It began some switching.

The GMTX slug set was sitting in the yard and it began to make noise on the scanner about moving out of the yard.  We took off for open ground east of the yard.  It eventually showed up behind the chinese restaurant in Fairfield.  It had pulled some cars near Hutahmaki and returned to the yard.  No signs that it was headed for SAPPI yet but it used the SAPPI 3 call sign.  We'd keep an eye on that.  We got a few close up and backlit shots by the restaurant in case we couldn't do better.

Somewhere we heard MAWA looking for papers at MP104 or so.  So we dashed off for Clinton where we saw it coming in the distance.  The sun was good for the crossing so we stayed put.  We then pursued to Bellsqueeze Rd. in Benton at CPF107.  We followed this by dumping Carl out at the Kennebec bridge so he could get some shots and by the time we gathered up and dropped by Irvings SAPPI 3 was on the move.  It beat us to the crossings and was in the void shy of Shawmut before we could shoot and darkness was approaching.  We called it a day at that point. 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/133256320@N04/shares/755f8i


BC

Mass Central Visit

Back on Friday 8/6/16 The DT&I Fan and I departed my place around 7:30am for Palmer, Mass.  The idea being that we could try to find the Mass Central RR and maybe even Leo Landry, who is an engineer there and HO modeler that Carl knows.

We started with lunch at the Steaming Tender restaurant and then drove over to the railroad office.  No one was around at first but I got out to take a photo and an employee said "Photos are ten bucks!" You could tell he was joking.  We chatted a second and then I asked him if Leo still worked there.  He said he was out on the road.  Before leaving he got on his phone and called Leo for his location, which was north of Ware.  He'd be there in 20 minutes.  Awfully helpful of the guy.  We charged off in that direction.

On the way up we noted all the crossings and such where good photos could be had and got a ways beyond Ware when we saw the headlights.  Carl turned it around and headed us to the transload facility in Ware.  It's and interesting place since the transload appears to be on a remnant of the B&M while the bulk of the MCER is former B&A (NYC/PC).  The bridges in the yard reflect that.  Plus, a GP9u and NW5 are currently sitting there.  The train came along and Leo instantly spotted Carl with a friendly wave.  We chased him back to Palmer where Leo took us into the compound for some better photos of equipment.

We ended the day with a visit with Billy Leazer at the old Amshack where we caught "Purple Trains" and the actually timely "Late For Sure Limited".  No freight through but CSX was not still as an intermodal went back and forth sorting outbound trains.  We left when the light died around 8:30pm.

The selected photos are in the Flickr album here:


BC

Maryland and Pennsylvania

PRR cabooses used by tourists now.  Northern Central RR, New Freedom, PA

The day after July 4th I was convoying south with my brother's family to their home in Maryland. The photo above sort of exemplifies the whole adventure given the Pennsy dominance and regional flavor. This family visit was followed on the 11th by a few days running up to Hamburg, NY to chase down a Pennsy I-1, stay at the Bridgeview B&B, and experience a couple of nights at the Station Inn at Cresson. This was with the usual railfan co-adventurer, Charles "The Fiddler" Kadyk. Yes we checked out the newly cleared Horseshoe Curve, but for the first time for me, we also visited the Allegheny Portage Historical Site. Cassandra overlook was included but we also got down to Holidaysburg where Curry Rail Services had some cabs out where I can see them and a sizeable group of Pan Am boxcars were going in for overhaul and new owners.  More local railfanning radiating from the Kadyk estate followed this trip.  I then concluded 17 days of wandering with a visit to Macungie, PA where I saw the re-newed Pan Am cars in GATX paint.  Finally I moved on to Steamtown, finishing the trip by staying at the Radisson Lackawanna Station Hotel in Scranton.

I could go on forever, which wouldn't help anything. Here are the photo highlights on Flickr, in order and mostly with captions, because I'm getting too old to write blog entries and insert more than a few photos at the same time:

BC

Red Barns

Normally when you hear "red barn" you think of something where cows are milked and hay is stored.  In the railfan world that would be the CP's cowled SD40-2's or SD40F's.  I had a chance encounter with one about 10 years ago near Montreal and thought that was a big deal.  Now that CMQ has acquired a few, they suddenly show up more often.  Last week at Millinocket, ME and yesterday west of Lac Meganic, QC.  I think I have another "bad penny" locomotive around.  Anyway, here is the Flickr album I created of them and I assume it will see some additions down the road...

https://flic.kr/s/aHskyYMabG




BC  6/27/16

Adventures in Central Mass.

Carl and I took a near-spontaneous trip to Mass. to see something different.  Almost all of what's left of freight in the southern half of the state is nocturnal these days unless you want to chase down branches with very sporadic operations. We were growing weary of driving all over Maine and seeing maybe one train.  Lately that one train has been a scheduled Downeaster.  Not much excitement there.  Brownville Jct. is seeing more action these days but we figured the same driving would also take us to Worcester.   As it turned out, Bill Leazer had the day off so we started by meeting him at Flynn's Truck Stop in Shrewsbury to pick him up.

After a good breakfast at the Edgemere Diner just down the street, we moved on to Worcester.  Union Station on a Saturday morning is wide open for parking, but we at least got to see an MBTA train leave for Boston and the layover yard was full.  CSX and the P&W were quiet.  The intermodal yard was quiet too.  Little radio chatter.  So, after we took a walk down the platform, where I took some photos in morning light, we moved on to Palmer, W. Springfield, E.Deerfield, then Greenfield.  The album below has the captioned photos of the tour.
The Flickr album is here:


It was a hot day.  My car thermometer got up to 94+ with a lovely humidity to accompany it.  We dropped by the Gardner T station/Chinese Restaurant where an autorack and a local were parked.  But, it wasn't to be our day for freight trains.  We moved south back to Flynn's on Rt. 140, which turned out to be a quiet and scenic route around all the urban crap.  We said our goodbye's and headed back to Maine.  It was a long day, especially when the heat took so much out of us.  But it was worth it to hang out with Billy and reconnoiter a piece of the new Conn River route.

BC

Flickr Study

CV RS11 doing some work on the Grand Trunk in South Paris, ME 1980.

Quite a while back (years) I found Flickr to be useful, but being one more "thing" to keep track of,  I did not give it the time I should have for my own photos.  This put me way behind the curve.  That changed only slightly a couple of years ago when I saw more and more rail photographers posting things from their own Flickr accounts.  I gradually noticed that Flickr opened up a vast world of personal rail photo galleries where people did their own thing without the filtering (or lack thereof) of a traditional photo gallery site.  I gave it another look and decided to play with it.  So, this post is really me talking to myself about utilizing some 'new to me' stuff.

While posting here on Blogger and Facebook was easy enough to keep track of, I had numerous on-line places to keep track of at work too.  Flickr felt like "a bridge too far".  That turned out to be untrue, at least in theory.  The latest software updates to all these on-line media sites allow you to 'drop and drag' photos very smoothly as well as post in one place and share to the other media easily.  This was superior to my previous experiences.  As these technical advancements made my tasks easier and easier, I was gradually, unknowingly doing it all backwards.  Flicker supplies links that I can post to the other places.  I can still add the lesser but story worthy stuff separately as before.  So here is a trial run.

A NB CSX autorack crosses the trestle at Catskill, NY 12/28/11

The top photo is an "embed" link provided for a single photo I recently put in my Flickr account.  I simply hit 'share', chose 'embed' and then chose a 640 x 427ish size.  Most likely I'll use a larger size in the future since Blogger will show you full sizes behind the "thumbnail" used in the Post.  I then copy and paste the link provided right into this blog where I want the photo to appear.  For me it's slightly simpler than uploading photos to 3 places on my slow DSL provider.  Even "slightly simpler" means it is now quite useful rather than an "extra" thing.  So I repeated the process for the preceding photo but this time I used Blogger's editing tools to resize and place the photo like I usually do.  It seems to work like before. 

Below, I used the similar feature to provide an album of photos.  This is my local stuff, most of which is already here on Blogger.  The photo is the first photo in the album but you should have access to the rest of the photos from this one.  All of the photos above are hyperlinked to their home on Flickr.

My "Local Maine" Album.  This shot is in Peru on the Rumford Branch.

I know there are things I can do to "pretty it up" and fine tune.  But this is the fun exploration phase rather than a finished product.   You should have access to the items I targeted.  If you have an account you may see more photos at the links.  That might need some testing with someone else's account since my devices all have Flickr access.

Anything that allows technology to make photo sharing easier is fine by me!
Don't bother telling me about better sites or ways to do this.
Patience.  I'm slow but steady.
Besides, do you really want to deal with an old fart who talks to himself.

BC

Spring 2016 Has Sprung

This particular spring brought me to Lewiston Jct. Maine a few more times than usual to play with new cameras.  This of course is directly related to the tendency of DSLR cameras to have shorter lives than the old film cameras did.  Part of that obsolescence is due to advancements in the technology.  The rest is due to the longevity of the hardware.  My Olympus DSLR camera still works but has been falling to pieces and falling behind technologically.  After 11 years I'd had enough.  I had purchased the DSLR to replace an Olympus OM-2 35mm fill camera that lasted 30+ years.  I sprung for a Nikon this time.  Regardless, I got down to "the Junctions" more than usual.

To try out the camera on rail subjects, Lewiston Jct. came to mind.  I naturally played with the settings around the house first but a nice sunny day beckoned.  The photos below do not show off any skills on my part or excellence on the part of the camera, but the bright orange of GWI is kind of "springy" and the afternoon sun on a clear day is just plain nice to absorb.  These first shots were from Saturday 4/9/16 and show some subjects that I haven't posted for a while. 

The rest of my "learning curve" photos are from earlier sessions, starting with this catch of a legitimate "heritage unit" at Waterville on 3/19/16.  You might call this a bit of spring color.

Then there are a few more "springy" (at the time very wishful thinking) items back at Lewiston Jct.  on 3/11/16.  The slugs were on display in rare fashion.  I was particularly interested in how the new rig handled shadows and light variations. 


 

Yes, I took a nearly identical shot of 3007 on this trip too, same as up top.  Couldn't help myself.



Hopefully I've at least added some seasonal color to this recently neglected blog.

BC