The Providence & Worcester railroad recently moved their interchange with the New England Central from New London to Willimantic, CT. Up until now, the interchange was worked by the P&W with extras from Plainfield, 3-4 times a week, running at various times of the day. As of Sunday January 6, 2008, it became a regular job, sporting the symbol NR-4. But as I hinted to Saturday, it wouldn’t run in daylight. Rather NR-4 did their work under cover of darkness. But that didn’t stop me from catching the debut of the train and photographing it.
I was in Willimantic to run a couple errands Sunday evening when I realized what time it was – NR-4 was on duty at 9pm, and it was now about 10:15. So I started heading east along the P&W’s Willimantic Branch with the scanner monitoring the P&W, NECR and marker frequencies, hoping to hear something. I went all the way to Versailles without hearing a thing – no marker, no contact with the dispatcher, no nothing. At Amgraph, I checked out the tracks – it looked like something may have been by. But it was odd that I didn’t hear at least the marker – the road isn’t that far from the tracks, so I should have picked something up…unless they went out as light engines – if that was the case, the marker wouldn’t be armed & transmitting information. So on that hunch, I headed back to where I started.
As I was traveling down Jerusalem Road in South Windham, someone was toning up the NECR dispatcher. Hmmm…at this hour, there’s usually not a NECR job around, so that meant it was NR-4. As I rolled down Route 203, nearing the P&W grade crossing, I got my confirmation – the P&W was asking permission into the yard to get their 22 cars. Next stop was the yard by the foot bridge.
As I neared the Frog Bridge, I saw NR-4 pulling under it – a pair of locomotives running light. So that was the reason why I didn’t pick up the marker. Taking the scenic route to the yard, I went down by Bridge Street to make sure they weren’t coming onto the main – which in hindsight was pretty dumb – they only got permission to come down the runner from the NECR dispatcher. After seeing the power stopped near where the Saturday extra dropped their two cars, I then made my way to the middle of the yard to try to get some shots before they move again.
With tripod, camera & lenses in hand, I made my way into the yard for a couple shots. There was a light fog in the air, so that added to the mood of the shots. First was a head-on shot of the power sitting on the track, with the crew members walking along, looking for their cars.
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Moving a bit further to my left, I got a vertical shot with the old Capitol Theater in the background
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And a horizontal, but this time I went with a black & white treatment, giving it a nice eerie feel with the fog hanging in the street lights.
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With the locomotives still sitting there, I figured it was worth a try to go up on the foot bridge and get some overhead shots. I got a couple shots of the power, cars and Bridge Street in the background. One went to Railpace, and one is here.
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Not long after that, the crew got back on the train and headed my way. They stopped below me, and the conductor got out, and we chatted for a couple seconds before they headed back east – again as light engines. Apparently the NECR didn’t have the cars ready for them. As he got back on the engine, I got a shot of the pair heading under me
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As they continued into the darkness, I swapped lenses to the telephoto and tried to thread the needle between the wires on the east side of the foot bridge to get a couple streak type shots. Here’s what I came away with as the train rolled across the Willimantic River and under the Frog Bridge
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At that point, I packed things up, went back to the car and headed for home. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but I think I did rather well…
Thanks for looking!
Tom
6 thoughts on “A New Train – Presenting P&W NR-4”
Nice work Tom! You beat me to the footbridge shot!
Great stuff Tom!! Looks like the footbridge shot or ground level angle would be a great place to do something with the lumedyne.
Thanks for the kind words guys!
Mike, check your email. 😉
I think those are beautiful shots!
Nice photos and text. But I thought that the line was abandoned from Versailles to South Windham. Did P&W relay this track recently?
( I live overseas so I do not always catch these things ) Thanks.
Bob
Adam – Thanks for the kind words!
Bob – Thank you also for the kind words. The Willi branch was never abandoned, just taken out of service from Versailles to Willimantic. The track has always remained in place, and if I remember correctly, they would hyrail it from time to time. The rehab they did in mid to late 2006 mainly consisted of tie replacement, brush cutting & some washout repairs. Granted, it’s all 10MPH, but it’s active track now.