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

Bow, Billerica and Beyond

NS power awaits unloading at Bow.

The DT&I Fan and I made a more or less impromptu trip south on Friday 2/22/13 with little more than some DeLorme and SPV maps, scanners and cameras.  We also took little on "intel" other than a loaded Bow Coal train was in "Bingo" or Rotterdam Jct. on Wednesday night.  We figured it was a good day to wander aimlessly and see stuff we'd never visited on the ground before - after Bow that is.

Concord tower, home of NEGS.

The drive down was quiet railfan-wise.  We pretty much followed US 202 to Concord.  For the archaeologist types, this route follows the old Lewiston-Portland Interurban route to Gray, crosses the "MEC Mountain Division" in South Windham, then parallels the WN&P/B&M/S&E to Rochester, NH.  Plenty of empty roadbeds, bridge abutments and even the odd building.  But, no trains.  The NHN was the first active line we crossed for two hours, and they weren't around.  Neither was NEGS home.  Not even a loco to look at near the tower in Concord.

Steam rises from PSNH Merrimack Station.

Bow was the first "lively" spot we hit after 3 hours, and that's a relative term.  The coal train was in the power plant and the locos were waiting in the usual spot near Johnson Rd.  The Ciment Quebec plant across the road was full of cars, and behind a lot of young trees and bushes.  The last time I was there, the cement plant was new (no vegetation) but empty.  No movement about but this was part of the ritual at going to Bow, and why we hadn't gone there much in this century.  Railfans who live closer catch all kinds of interesting power on this run but they have the luxury of following the train or popping by without burning half of a day in the process.  We drove 3 hours to see 3 "thoroughbreds" on Perinni Siding.  But this was to be a mere starting point and a change of pace from the usual drive down I-495.

The belly of the beast.

With Bow behind us, we headed south on Rt. 3 and 3a to North Chelmsford to see the wye where the "Northern" line to Concord breaks away from the "Freight Main".  We had hoped to take a location shot or two but with snow banks everywhere, crowded tight buildings and no parking, we gave up and kept moving.  The next target we could think of was Haverhill T Station.  But, on the way we noticed that North Billerica wasn't that far from our course.  Why not detour a couple of miles to check out a 'new to us' T station and possibly see "Iron Horse Park" for the first time.

To find the T station we simply had to follow the road signs.   We were barely out of the car and noticed the platform signs telling us that an outbound train was due in a few minutes.  That was plenty of time to scope the place out and yet not delay the day much.  Perfect.  It wasn't long before an MBTA GP40MC showed up towing a Lowell bound "purple train".   This was my first time seeing the "hunter orange" bags over the couplers.  I'll have to look up what that's supposed to accomplish. 

Even closer to the belly of the beast.

The DeLorme Atlas told us how close the town was to our route, and helped vaguely otherwise but was pretty limited on the local streets.  From the station we did a lot of driving to find "Iron Horse Park" by dead-reckoning.  It had to be hemmed in by two lines and near the splitting point.  We missed the correct turn on our first pass through the neighborhood.  But, we found a cross street after establishing that there is a large "wilderness" and water supply area south of town.  We found the correct street "bassackwardly" but we found it.  There wasn't much to see legally and again we were foiled by snow banks.  We settled for a picture of the sign on High St. and a quick look at the sheer size of the former B&M shop complex.

A southbound Downeaster tries to sneak into Haverhill.

Next we did some more dead-reckoning to the Haverhill T Station.  We did eventually find it and the schedule gave us two trains in about half-an-hour.  The first train in was the T.  Since this was the end of the line, I figured well where it would come from but missed which track it would be on.  Anyone one would have guess right-hand running, especially with a Downeaster train due.  Well that was backwards.  The T showed up on the station side and the Downeaster came in soon thereafter on the other side.  While that hurt the shot I was set up for, it set me up for some interesting shots of the Downeaster mixed with the T.  Meanwhile the place is suddenly crawling with people crossing the tracks and looking for the right train or their car in the parking garage across the tracks.  It looked like chaos to me, but it apparently is the daily ritual here at 4:08 or so.

Downeaster departing Haverhill over the Merrimack River.

With the trains gone we got back on the road.  Daylight was fading so we headed to another "new to us" station in Newburyport".  We had no schedules with us so we didn't know what we might see.  As it turned out, we just missed a train by 20 minutes and another wasn't arriving for 45 minutes.  While a train would have been good, daylight would be gone before the arrival, so we settled for some location shots with lots of empty track.  This station was interesting to us because it is the stub end of the old "Eastern" line to Portland.  The bumpers were by the end of the platforms.  The swing bridge over the Merrimac River, while still in place, needs repair and the rails have been removed.  It will be decades, if ever, before that line sees trains to Portsmouth again.  Looked like a potentially interesting summer diversion to return and walk the trail up to the bridge.

That might have been the end of the day but it wasn't.  We drove up to Derry, NH for the Derry Model Railroad Fun Night.  This took us along Rt.28 and a roadbed through Salem.  It was too dark to see the old station though.  The group in Derry is part of the NMRA Seacoast Division and had an interesting presentation on doing "compacted" scenery on your layout.  It was entitled "5 miles in 3/4 inches" and dealt with layered backdrops.  It was getting late when they got to the "hands on" part so we left early and reversed out morning course back home. 

Sunlight gets scarce at Newburyport.

It was a good day to be out of the house and though we didn't see many trains, we found some interesting stuff.   Some things will be worth another visit.

BC

Another Winter of Our Discount Tent

I hadn't pointed my digital SLR at a rail subject in months so I figured I'd get off my duff an do it while the snow was still around.  The scanner was quiet so I decided to catch up on the local sights.  Some minor changes had taken place since summer so on Sunday 2/17/13 those were my first targets.  Pan Am has renamed the sidings so that each end has a distinct name too - no more 'east' - 'west' designations.  I haven't looked them up yet and I didn't notice any signs to photograph.

The St. Lawrence and Atlantic put up a new sanding tower.  So, a couple of shots were in order to show the facility.  The former BAR plow was out resting, yet poised for the next storm.   Sundays are pretty quiet so I didn't linger for long.  The blizzard winds easily discouraged loitering.  By the way, I think the old sanding tower was from the BAR too, Northern Maine Jct. roundhouse in Hermon, ME.

I have no info on the project since I'd only recently heard of its manufacture and had no idea that it was this far along.  Some colleagues knew an apprentice machinist who was making parts for the project.  These educators were fascinated that trains used sand for traction and with how obvious that sounded.











On Monday the sun came out and the DT&I Fan joined me for an afternoon around the area.  As usual we started at the junctions.  Nothing at Danville but the SLR was switching the newer Savage 
/ Safe Handling yard.  The Quebec Gatineau switcher pair was doing the honors.  Although it wasn't a rare sight, the sun was too good to pass up.  When they move on, I'll be glad I caught them.



We figured we'd head north.  Nothing on the  scanner but we knew there had to be a RUPO somewhere.  At first we didn't see or hear anything at Leeds Jct.  So, we headed to Waterville.  However, we only got as far as the overpass over the Rumford line.  RUPO was moving so we did a u-turn back to the junction.  It took a while for it to reach the switch.  Meanwhile, we sat in the warm car by the signal and watched the winds whip the snow by us.  Eventually they got their Form-D clearance to move out and pass our spot.  We were next to a snow pile where the shack used to be.  Carl used the pile for height.  I used the car window to prevent frostbite.  The pile also enabled a coupler high drift to form so the train would have to bash through it.  A third camera down the tracks could have caught the impact but the operator would have been a popsicle before it was over.   

Waterville was our next target.  No real hopes in finding anything but some odd locos were in the neighborhood so we figured we'd give it a shot.  Near town we heard the SAPPI job get clearance to enter the mainline at CPF110.  We exited at Fairfield and found our train at the crossing so we got ahead to MP 111 for a grab shot at the crossing, which I missed.  Farther down in the yard we were able to catch the train entering the yard.  The sun was pretty good for the old "sludge gray". The main tracks were clear for a change.  Unfortunately, that was the last thing of note in town.

 We figured we'd see if PORU was in the neighborhood yet since the scanner was pretty quiet otherwise. (The "Bucksport Job" was active but well beyond our reach) Earlier at Leeds we'd heard that the crew came on duty at 1300 in Rigby.  Maybe a meet at New Gloucester - or whatever they call it now so we headed there off the pike.  No joy.  Turned out that RUPO made it only as far as "Rumford Jct. - West", or "Poland" now.  Their clearance mentioned returning the switch to normal at "Hackett's", formerly "Rumford Jct. - East".  DJ-1 and the SLR were playing in the yard at Danville Jct. so perhaps they had to wait their turn.

Anyway, I finished the day shooting the SLR as it worked among those fancy new switch lock signals.  

BC

Pics Worth A Thousand Words

Foreign Rail

I was looking at the above picture of rail and began wandering all over the internet to find out about it.  I found a few other details while I was at it.  Nippon rail showed up all over the Union Pacific system on the previously reported trip to Nebraska, so my curiosity was already nudged on the subject. 

This particular 141 pound rail was found in the "Bottoms" of Kansas City on the Union Pacific.  I guess you'd say it was a high traffic area rather than a high speed area.  The three track mainline in Nebraska as well as the upgraded Marysville Subdivision had a lot of identical Nippon rail too.  The info I found said that Nippon and Krupp produce extra hardened specialty rails for high stress areas, which are only a small but growing portion of the overall rail market.  It costs more to make and more to transport from overseas.  Surprisingly, one forum I came across had track workers saying the Nippon rail was a pain to put down because the height of the base wasn't consistent for pressing on tie clamps.  The machinery to do the job needs to be adjusted constantly.  Domestic normal steel rail is apparently easier to install because of uniform dimensions and softer composition.  I read that they had some other complaints because the extra hardening didn't agree well with drill bits and grinders either.  My guess would be that someone didn't receive the right equipment for the job. 

Mittal makes the most common domestic rail these days, but there are other producers with modern processes, like Oregon Steel Mills that owns the former Colorado Fuel and Iron rail plant in Pueblo, CO.  Steel Dynamics of Indiana produced some of the rail for Amtrak's Downeaster expansion to Brunswick.  Mittal is a foreign company that picked up a few of the leftovers of the US steel industry, including the former Bethlehem Steel's Steelton rail plant near Harrisburg, PA.  Standard rail from a wide variety of foreign sources has been and will be tried out, especially when the currency markets favor it.  Krupp rail was very popular in the 1920's because of this and the Boston and Albany route was once relaid with it.  Norfolk Southern and others are trying out Chinese sources these days, among others.  But, the vast variables that go into rebuilding a line don't always boil down to cost numbers for choice of rail.  Sometimes durability and metallurgy are priority.  New demands for increased weight and volumes on the rail network may favor quality over quantity. 

While looking for rail photos I found another foreign, albeit closer rail source.  I found some Sydney Steel rail in my photo files.  This 115 pound rail was from 1982 and it appears the plant has been shut down since then.  Geographically, it's about the same distance as the nearest domestic producers, but it's not the same distance as Japan or Germany.  This piece was found on the former Maine Central just south (rail west) of Danville Junction, at the former "Brown's Crossing".  It contains Newfoundland iron ore heated with Cape Breton coal.  The company became a Crown Company (government owned) in 1967.  This particular rail looks like it's seen better days. 

 

I couldn't help but end on this classic though domestic note.  Here is some rail on the north end of the Bangor and Aroostook mainline in Fort Kent, literally within sight of Canada.  It's the standard 85 pound Bethlehem Steel, vintage 1938.  Other than being light weight and obsolete, it looks pretty good for being well used over the last 70+ years. Of course, it has benefited from being in Maine where "life in the slow lane" is the norm.   It may be replaced by one of those names listed above if the line is to be serviceable to the latest car load limits. 

BC