This trip started as an excuse to go to a first annual model train show in Portsmouth and hit Five Guys Burgers for lunch. We simply kept going down Route 1 into "the belly of the beast" until we met the "T" after lunch. The above photo is from one of my first trips to see the "T" in 1981. This was actually a side trip to North Station since I was with my brother and cousin Dan headed to the airport to pick up my sister in Brian's beetle. North Station still had "Budd Cars" and other old coaches along with the GO Transit cars that passed through for a while. This Pullman Standard cab car has since been rebuilt into a 200 series 'blind trailer' car and the F10 is long gone. This was my first real encounter with "Purple Trains".
I should apologize up front to anyone who isn't a "Purple Train" fan, but to anyone who does not get to Mass. very often this stuff is slightly interesting in the details. The northern-most lines have been a target for Carl and me these past two February vacations. We hit places like Billerica and Haverhill last year. This year we concentrated on the Newberryport and Rockport lines. Even these slight incursions into Mass. drive me nuts. I hate driving the 'side roads' in that part of the world. Having some things to look for make even the most mundane trip to a
train station a bit more interesting for me and worth some minor driving grief. The MBTA has new cars and
locomotives to scout out and some of the old stuff is fun to look for.
Now and then we run into an oddity too. This trip didn't help us find
the newest of locomotives, but we did spot some new cars and a couple
oldies of note. I use this site for roster detail.
These first three shots are at the end of the line in Newberryport, MA. The line used
to go to Portsmouth and Portland. Now it stops at the end of the
platform. The bridge over the Merrimac is still in place but with no
rails, almost holding out hope for a revival. The photo above is an end detail shot of a new Rotem control cab car. The bugs haven't been worked out yet on these so it may be a while before they lead a train. For some of the cars, it may be a while before they do anything. Rotem is in deep trouble with this order of cars and will put them all through a plant in R.I. Bombardier cab car 1635 on the right is unremarkable except that we ran into it's sequential neighbor 1634 later in the day. The light was a challenge but I wanted proof that we saw something. The shot below is the same train heading back to Boston. That Rotem car really stands out. Even it wasn't tall enough to block the transition from green to red on the middle signal.
Next we headed to the Rockport line. This was wholly new territory for me. Very coastal touristy. Not my kind of place. But, it was also off-season which made the trip tolerable. Rockport turned out to be a very interesting station. The depot platforms, layover tracks and related facilities appeared to be "permanent makeshift". Everything seemed shoehorned into a small, stub ended area. Parking and layover tracks appeared to be mingled out of necessity. Perhaps it has grown too fast or it was returned too fast originally. Either way, there were 4 trains sitting around when we arrived so those 
are at least partially featured in the following 4 shots. The first shot is from the parking lot looking at two layover trains. That's a hardware store in the background and the departing train is behind me. The sapling in front of the F40 just seemed to highlight the nature of the place. Snowbanks from the parking lot helped too. A modeler would get laughed at for building this place to scale. "That's not prototypical!" The old freight house by the runaround track would really set off the purist. 
This next shot is of a "Messerschmidt" BTC-3. Riders should know that these cars have taller window and are equipped with restrooms. Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm
GmbH (MBB) built these in 1987 in the days when the "Budd cars" and old predecessor coaches were being replaced. I just like anything that hints at German fighter aircraft. The last shot reveals most of the yard layout as a Boston bound train moves out.
Ipswich was a "target of opportunity" on the way home. We had about a short 30 minute wait for the next train so we needed to get trackside somewhere. Once we saw the lighting and surroundings we decided that this was the right place. This would be another Boston bound train from Newberryport. Unfortunately the locomotives would always be on the wrong end and in shadows. That was the only real technical glitch with coming down here in February and limiting our range to the north end. The double track picked up again at the end of the platform next to Ebsco printing. The cab car 1634 was wrecked 10 or so years ago on the nearby Rockport line and finally revived a couple of years ago.
We pretty much abandoned Mass. in haste with a vague idea of catching a Downeaster train at Wells before the light gave out. It turns out that our year old timetable was way off. We arrived 20 minutes early to find out that our train had left an hour earlier and nothing was due until well after dark. The signals down by the turnpike were lit so we thought we'd see if that meant something. Making our way down to the platform over the icy path we saw headlights in the distance. While the headlights "flared the meter" during the haphazard composition of my shots on the slushy lower platform, the first one below was salvageable. 8072 is a former BN SD40-2 that roamed over my hometown rails in Colorado after its birth around 1978. Not a bad catch moments after the letdown of missing the Downeaster. For nostalgic reasons, it's my favorite shot of the day. We did hang around a few minutes after this westbound disappeared. The signals to the east were still lit but the signals to the west went dark. We thought the lit signals might mean something but for all we knew they never went dark. Time to call it a day. We would pass Portland with enough light to see but not enough for good photography. I didn't have the mental energy left to dodge snow banks and over-zealous RR law enforcement just to see the usual "sludge gray" around Rigby. At this point I could claim "mission accomplished" anyway.
BC
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| A PAR westbound passes the Downeaster platform at Wells, ME 2/22/14 |
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