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
