Still getting through the backlog of stuff. Now we’re up to last Monday – Labor Day – where we did a couple family chases. Both were quite spur of the moment, but both were not successful. On the other hand, without the failure, the successful one probably would not have happened.
With the DOD extra I had mentioned on my last morning in New Jersey coming into the picture, I figured they might be coming down the P&W on the morning of Labor Day. So we decided to make it a family trip and head out on a whim to see if we could find the extra rolling along the Norwich Branch. I figured our best bet would be to head for Plainfield first thing, and move from there.
On our way to Plainfield, we heard NR-2 informing the dispatcher that they were south of MP12 – guess that was out of the question. But there was no mention of the DOD extra. Could it have come down the night before, and NR2 had it? No idea…well, until I got a call that the load was still in Worcester. OK, at least we didn’t miss it. So we opted to head home.
But as we were almost home, the scanner woke up with NR4X heading west out of Plainfield. OK, that meant in a few hours there would be a train in Willimantic. With that tidbit of information, we went home and relaxed for a while – figured an afternoon chase would be in order. So while the kids were winding down, we put together some lunch, and around noontime hit the road to find NR4X.
After some searching, we found them in Willimantic, and ended up bagging them at the Frog Bridge, Route 203 and Scotland Dam. Since the bridge is out on Station Road, I figured the chase would be done there. So we took the kids out for ice cream at Buttonwood Farms. Made for a nice afternoon!
[cpg_album:770]Thanks for looking!
Tom
