An Old Friend Passes Through

A normal visit to Pan Am's District 1 with the DT&I Fan didn't yield much excitement, at first.  We started at 'the junctions' and worked our way to Leeds Jct.  We saw nothing and the scanner was silent.  At Leeds Jct. the signal was sporting a 'pair of greens'.  Strange since we saw nothing on the way. 

I got a photo of the signal since two greens are unusual, though not rare.  It could only mean we missed an eastbound back around L/A.  The scene at Leeds Jct. may also soon be changed, or at least cleaned up, by a tie crew working it's way east from Royal Jct. lately.  Still a far cry from the old Maine Central days when the track was good for 40mph or better. 

 In a rare moment of clarity I decided to head back into Greene to trace the rails in case something was actually eastbound and nearby.  Just after we crossed the tracks and headed for College Ave. in Lewiston, we heard "The Lady of The Woods" detector at MP 157 speak.  In fact is wasn't long after the two of us were talking about it being out of commission.  We turned around and headed for Sullivan Rd. crossing.  I was intrigued since I don't recall having used the crossing for railfanning before.

About 10 minutes later, a long time given that we were about 3 miles away from the detector and had to turn around etc to get to the crossing, POWA made its appearance.  602 on the point was at least reasonably clean but the lighting was pretty harsh.  It took a lot of editing to get that photo to show anything through all the deep shadows.  However, as the train went by I discovered that roster shots and such were ideally lit looking the other way.  Too bad I didn't see the shadow to the crossing signals first.

 The former BN unit caught my attention.  It had wandered these rails before but this is the first time I've had a chance to photograph it.  As I do with all BN SD40-2's I encounter, I checked the number real quick to see if it might have been a Colorado and Southern unit.  The number looked familiar enough but I'd have to check a roster to be sure.  In the meantime I simply checked the image on my camera and this is what I saw:

 There, above the rear end number boards was the elusive 'C&S' sub-lettering!  Nice!  The first one I'd seen in-person in Maine.  I spent the bulk of my growing up along the Colorado and Southern so this was a unit I'd probably seen in my youth.  These units were purchased by the BN for Powder River coal service mainly but they took their turn running along the Colorado front range by my home in Fort Collins.  This unit was built in 1978 while I was in high school.  The C&S was folded into the BN on the last day of 1981 while I was in college.  This unit probably rode the original C&S once in a while.

The original number was probably the C&S three digit #972.  However, the late batches were numbered directly into the BN four digit system right from EMD.  Given that 980 and 996 were 'master and slave' early model 'distributive power units' numbered well away from other units, and with no other numbers used in between, this one may have gone either way.   There were lots of 900 series SD40-2's on the rails along the front range mixed in with other BN and C&S six axle units.  After the merger was complete, the three digit numbers were updated into the BN four digit number system.  The paint on this one looks unaltered.



After POWA passed us in Greene, we had not heard any Rumford jobs yet so we headed to Danville Jct.  The idea was to catch a possible PORU following behind.  It was only a guess backed up by a hunch.  The radio was not helping us at all.  We met the head end of POSJ at Black Cat Rd. crossing as we approached Danville.  The long string of centerbeams on the point told us right away that it wasn't PORU.  No time for photos and it wasn't that photogenic anyway.  Driving over the crossings in the village we saw that the signals at the west end of Danville were dark.  At this point we decided to head home rather than give chase.  District 1 just didn't cause much excitement on this day.  Another eastbound might have changed that. 

A mere two hour tour and we saw two trains.  A high average for Maine but that's allowing the stats to lie for us.  If we'd kept going on until dark, the one train per hour average would have faded.   It was too nice a day to miss even a piece of it in the sun given all the clouds we've had all summer.

BC