How To Fill A New Year's Eve" 2014-15

The recipe for a good day among some Maine railfans is to load a car with people and head to Massachusetts.  There are things to see and do down there that simply aren't available in Maine.  While we didn't see a vast quantity of trains, we did get to see our friend Billy in Worcester and Paul "The Wheelman" was able to tag along.  Carl had given me a gift certificate to Hobby Emporium of Tyngsboro, MA so that was what gave us an excuse to hit the road.

 Ayer is always a mixed bag depending on what we have in mind.  Coming down from Maine usually means that we miss the morning rush hours on the commuter system.  As we passed through 'Willows' we stopped to look over a NS powered autorack train parked by the Ford facility.  Next to us were the old and new signal masts for the junction a few yards to the west (left).  We got out of the car and walked over to the crossing.  Behind us was the Fitchburg line crossing as well so all the gates had to go down for any train on either line.  One T train passed while we were there.  It was probably the outbound version of the inbound we saw. 












I had only heard of the car facility in this area so it was a neat to see the empties preparing to depart.  We did not venture down into the property but we were parked along the driveway to see the signals. 









This trip we didn't have to wait too long for an inbound T train at the platform.  We probably saw this same train a Willows and it simply reversed direction at Fitchburg.  The sun angles weren't bad but there were some annoying shadows.  However, all this is better than our usual skunking here when we are just passing through.  Given all the new cars and locomotives that are being delivered, some of this gear is going to disappear in the near future.  All of the teething problems with the Rotem cars and MPI units will go away eventually. 

I had to shoot this photo of the Keolis truck simply to have some representation of the MBTA's operator.   They picked up a system in transition to new but temperamental equipment and then February's snow put them over the edge.  They will either come out strong or go down in flames and disappear.  I will have this one photo if it is the latter. 





Once we left Ayer we followed the Fitchburg line toward Leominister where we turned south for Palmer.  Along the way we stopped at Shirley to photograph the small but distinctive shelter.  After the photo we all noticed that it still had a telephone stand.  That fit the theme at Palmer later.  "The Wheelman" is into geo-caching and located one in a park across the street while we were there. 


 Palmer is always interesting.  Today was slightly less so.  Within the previous week the "Vermonter" was rerouted around Palmer to the Connecticut River line which was recently rehabilitated.  The tedious reverse move from CSX to NECR and vise-versa at the depot will no longer be seen.  So we ordered some take-out food at the Steaming Tender and waited for something to go by.  The only action turned out to be a NECR switcher.  But, it had NECR's paint scheme, so all was not bad.  The waiting room inside the station wasn't bad either.  The old accoutrements like shoe shine and phone were still around in some form.  The phone was converted to push button but the booth was cool.

Palmer is also the new home of the former Bob Buck's Hobby Shop.  We had to stop in and spend some money.  It's a decent shop, worth the stop.  And, if you know the antics of Bob Buck in the world of the big Amherst Train Show in Springfield, there's no sign of Bob's ghost anywhere. 

On the way home we passed this diner in Spencer.  We were stopped right there in the road in traffic so I dug out my camera to get the Moxie sign. 

From here it got dark.  We dropped in at the Worcester depot to visit with Billy Leazer for a while.  Then, off to Tyngsboro to find out that Hobby Emporium had closed early for New Years.  Oh well.  We'll have to do it again.

BC

 

2015 - The Real Winter of Our Discount Tent

I've joked about these things before but this year the railroads in New England are really hurting from extreme cold and high volumes of snow.  The listserv's are full of why service has fallen off and the media has been hammering the MBTA (Keolis) so I'll leave the why alone, mostly.  The very same snowbanks that have hampered operations on the rails have kept me from boldly going where I can photograph much, especially those plow specials.  But, I did manage a couple of shots that show the snow here in Maine.  While snow is no big deal up this way, the railroads are a shade less able to conquer it. 

Here we see GATX 406 sitting in the snowy Waterville yard on 2/18/15.   I have a predisposition towards GP15's anyway, so to get this one amidst the snowbanks was neat.  The rising steam was from the shops complex.  The trailing "sludge gray" unit was a common 300's range GP40.

The real story of that day is that an oil extra with BNSF power had passed a couple of hours earlier, and, the B&M heritage 'geep' was working the SAPPI branch.  Of course Carl and I missed all of that excitement.  










On the way home we managed to catch up with either RUPO or WAPO (or whatever the symbol was) around Lewiston.  We saw this train pull up to the switch at Fairgrounds East (the new name escapes me) and we intercepted at Strawberry Ave.  The lead was 517 in blue,  a "sludge gray" was second and the former SLR yellow leaser trailed. The signal at Fairgrounds West was yellow and we knew another train (WB I think) was at Danville.  This train halted where I photographed it.  The main was clear of snow but this guy waited on the siding for some reason.  We moved on and called it a day.  It was too cold to stand around long.  Later in the week a Rumford train would be left on the siding without its power so passing was not an option.  Leeds also had a train and a PAR blue leaser sitting at Roy for days.

A few days later on 2/21 there was a train show in Augusta and another chance to follow District 1.  Carl and I got as far as Subway/Fairgrounds in Lewiston where the crew of a Waterville train AYWA was stopped for lunch.   Unit 600 was on the point and there were a pair of NS SD40-2's on the rear.  They moved on soon after I got some photos.  We got them again at the MP157.2 detector where there were fewer snow banks in the way of detail shots. 

The snowbanks did hamper efforts to get photos in Lewiston.  They also proved to be annoying when we got to Winthrop and found a  619 POWA slugging through town.  By the time we got to a good photo spot the tall snow piles in a bank parking lot cost us the few seconds we needed to get into position.  But that was a bit later.  We stopped by Leeds Jct. again.  The lease unit and cars were still at Roy and a WAPO was tying down at Cressey.  Apparently getting stuff to Waterville was a priority this day.  The ballast regulator/plow from Rumford was sitting on the north siding with the Waterville Russell plow (the PAR painted one). 

 

Paraphrasing one forum poster "each train required a herculean effort" anywhere east of Selkirk.  Units OOS all over the place and disabled trains taking up the passing points.  A form of meltdown.  CSX and other roads were not immune.  I would be sympathetic but today, well more than a week after the last storm, I read of an MBTA plow finally getting to one of their lines.  Does anyone in charge know that it snows every year?  Some years might even be like this one.  Cutting capital to the bone - apparently including losing seldom used snow fighting equipment and having lean MOW forces certainly - exacerbate the situation.   But again, I only have a couple of irrelevant college degrees and no rail experience so I have no real expertise here.  I'm just a railfan taking pictures and will not complicate anything by pretending to know operations.

BC