Mass Bay RRE Fall Circle Tour on the P&W

Continuing with the “passenger extra on the Providence & Worcester Railroad” theme (see yesterday’s post), I managed to photograph the Massachusetts Bay Railroad Enthusiasts’ Fall Circle Tour which runs on the P&W every mid-October.  The train makes a big circle through southeastern New England – starting in Worcester, MA, continuing southeast to Providence, RI, then heading on Amtrak to Groton,CT where they make their final swing north back onto P&W rails to Worcester.  But due to the family schedule on the 15th of October, I only got to shoot them at a couple sp0ts along the P&W’s Norwich branch in eastern Connecticut.  Things still worked out, though – and it also helped that I was getting train position updates from a couple friends who where chasing them along the entire route.

By the time soccer wrapped up and we got back home, I started making my way south towards Norwich.  I figured I might be able to beat them down there – they usually have a photo runby stop under the Route 2A (Mohegan-Pequot) Bridge between Preston and Uncasville.  But after texting with Doug and Phil, who were chasing the train, they were already starting the runby – making it doubtful I could make it to Norwich ahead of them.  So instead I went into Willimantic, and made my way up towards Plainfield.  Figured I would have better luck north of Norwich.

I got to Plainfield soon after that, and started thinking about where I could shoot.  I figured I’d check things out to the south and go from there.

As I was heading south, I got a text from Doug – the train was doing another photo runby, this time at Norwich yard.  Crap – I could have made it down there!  Oh, well – too late for that.  After scouting around (and getting some gas in Lisbon), I figured my first shot would be at Clayville Pond in Griswold.

So I set up shop there and waited.  After a bit another text from Doug – they were on their way north ahead of the train, and would meet up with me.

10 or so minutes passed when Doug & Phil made their appearance and parked behind me – then we proceeded up to the bridge to get into position.  About 5 minutes later, we could see headlights to the south, then the train came into view.  We all climbed up on the bridge to get above the chain-link fence, and got our shots.

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Not too bad.

For our next stop, I figured we could get up to Central Village ahead of the train – they had to go around 10MPH through Plainfield yard, which should give us the chance to leapfrog ahead of them.

And leapfrog we did.  We got to the bustling metropolis of Central Village about 5 minutes ahead of the train, where we picked our shot and waited.  Not too long after that, the train came into view, and we got our shots of the passing excursion.

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And with the speed of the train, and fading light, I decided to break off the chase there and call it a day.  There’d be no way to catch it at many other spots between there and Worcester.  But I think things worked out rather nicely.

Thanks for looking!
Tom