Masking tape and a CF-7 – A morning on the G&U

After my slideshow at the Amherst Railway Society, I decided to spend the night up in Amherst instead of driving home in the wee hours.  And since I was taking Wednesday off from work as well, I figured I could take a ride over to North Grafton, MA and see a friend of mine that I haven’t seen in a while.  The nice weather also helped my decision to head east on the Mass Pike instead of south towards home.

After a nice breakfast at the bed & breakfast I stayed at in Amherst, I headed south towards Palmer where I’d pick up the Pike heading east towards Worcester.  At that time the fog was quite thick, and there was a slight overcast in the skies above.  But by the time I got into the area of Worcester, the fog was gone and the skies were a nice blue, with some wispy cirrus clouds floating along.  After getting off of the Pike, I made my way up to North Grafton where the Grafton & Upton Railroad’s crew base is located.

When I got there the Operations Manager, Tony, was looking over their newest acquisition – a former CN/GTW GP9 – continuing the slow process of painting the engine into the G&U’s black & yellow scheme.  I’ve known Tony for quite a few years both through the CERM as well as when he worked at the Connecticut Southern Railroad.  I haven’t had a chance to meet up with him since he left the CSO a few years back, so I figured that a run by while I was in the area was in order.

We chatted for a while, and he gave me the tour of the grounds and equipment up there, including their beautifully restored center cupola caboose.  After the tour & BSing, he got back to work masking out the geep’s nose and pilot for the black zebra stripes.  While he was doing that, I wandered around the grounds and got a series of shots of the equipment in the yard.

Next they fired up the EMD CF7 because they had to head down the tracks a bit (maybe 3/4 of a mile) to switch out a customer – Washington Mills.  So I rode along with them to check things out, and of course get a few shots along the way.

After that, it was lunchtime and they were wrapping things up – so we bid farewell and I headed home for the day.  Not a bad way to spend the morning – on what Tony calls the “shortest shortline in America”.  I’ll be back, though…

Thanks for looking!
Tom