Spring Reconnoitering in Maine

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.

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.

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. 

New Downeaster facilities in Brunswick.

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.

RUPO passing DJ-1 at Danville Jct. 

 BC