Well, Friday the 13th turned out to be a fairly lucky day, in the realm of trains around these parts, that is. I was able to catch New England Central train #610 in Franklin, CT on my way into work, a Providence & Worcester hyrail in Ledyard on an inspection of the Norwich Branch, P&W train NR-2 heading south through Ledyard under a brief peek of blue sky & sunshine, and finally NECR train #610 again, this time in Montville in the waning seconds before the cloud cover took over for the bright sunlight.
When I left the house this morning, there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. Just a beautiful sunrise, and a slight breeze stirring the chilly air. Until I started heading south. The further south I got, the closer the clouds got on the south and eastern horizons. As I approached Franklin, the scanner came alive with the conversations of NECR train 610 working in the area of Cargill Feeds. So I did my usual turn from Route 87 onto Murphy Road to make sure they weren’t working on the north end of the complex. Nope, they weren’t, but like yesterday, they tied down the remainder of their train north of the Murphy Road crossing. So I headed down Route 32 to the plaza next to the Dunkin’ Donuts and checked things out. As I pulled in, the train was shoving a cut of cars up the runaround track. I only had time for one quick grab shot of the train dissappearing behind a cut of cars on the main.
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Back into the car to continue the journey south. A bit later on, I headed out to try to catch Providence & Worcester train NR-2 around Mill Cove in Ledyard, CT. With the cloud cover, and the diffused lighting it provided, I figured some different angles would be possible – even moreso since the brush has been cut south of Red Top and along the causeway between Mill Cove and the Thames River. Once I got to the cul-de-sac at Red Top, I heard over the scanner that a hyrail was clear of MP5 and heading my way. So I set up for a quick shot of the MoW vehicle. Got him at the Red Top sign, and heading for the causeway.
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A couple minutes later, NR-2 was reporting that they were approaching MP5, and asking where the MoW vehicle was. A couple minutes after that, they got permission to head all the way into Fairview Yard to the south – this only meant that the train was getting close. Right at that time, the clouds started to open up, revealing some nice blue skies and bright sunlight. I figured I should take advantage of that, and ditch the 70-200mm telephoto in favor of the 15mm fisheye, getting as much of that blue I can into the frame. Well, I don’t think I made the wrong decision, do you? 😉
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And I grabbed a shot of them heading away. Got lucky and got the entire train in the same frame.
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About 20 seconds after I took the above frame, I could hear horns across the Thames River. Hmmm, sounds like NECR #610 was on the move south. A couple minutes later, i got my confirmation, as a pair of NECR GP-38s pulled a trio of loaded lumber cars south along the Thames. I grabbed this shot just as the clouds were starting to thicken up.
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At that point, it was time to head back. Not a bad Friday the 13th…
Thanks for looking!
Tom
