Running a bit behind here – getting ready to move my office at work, and I’m doing some maintenance on the servers at home. I wasn’t able to get out the past couple days at work, but I did get out for a bit on Wednesday. The only train I managed to catch was an Acela, but I was also able to catch the Navy’s newest nuclear fast attack submarine…but it was running on diesel power. Read on for the poop…
Providence & Worcester train NR-2 was yet again very early, and by the time I got out, they were already on the Northeast Corridor heading west towards New Haven. But something else caught my eye – a pair of tugboats, and a pair of US Coast Guard cutters heading north towards the Navy Sub Base. That usually meant one thing – a sub was leaving the base. So I set my sights on the USS Nautilus overlook park to see what was going down.
Not long after arriving at the park, the John P. Wronowski announced on the river frequency that he and the Patricia Ann would be aiding a US Navy unit southbound to the Electric Boat shipyard. Not long after that, the pair of tugs aided a Virginia class fast attack submarine out of her berth, and pointed her south in the channel. The odd thing, though, was the sub was streaming white smoke out of the top of her sail. That meant one thing – that her diesel generators were fired up to power the ship for the short trip south.
As the sub approached the USS Nautilus, I heard over the loudspeaker that this was the USS Hawaii, making it the newest commissioned submarine in the Navy’s fleet. So I caught the sub & tugs at various points along the Thames between the Nautilus and EB. Here’s the shots – enjoy! Oh, yeah, amongst the last few shots you’ll notice an eastbound Acela approaching Shaw’s Cove and then heading for the station. That was the closest to a meet I got today.
And as a side note, it was freaking cold on Wednesday, especially with the wind whipping at a steady good 10MPH!
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Thanks for looking!
Tom
