Yeah, you guessed it, I’m behind again. Time for a flurry of updates over the next day or so to catch up. Here’s installment #1 on that batch – from July 31st. That was a day that Nick Palazini, David Telesha and Jon (I can’t for the life of me remember his last name) came down chasing Providence & Worcester train NR-2 from Plainfield. They gave me a call once they left Plainfield, and we tried to meet up at Mill Cove in Ledyard. Well, that didn’t work for me – I had to come into work late because I had to wait at the house for an inspector from the town (Lebanon is going through property revaluation, so they need to inspect every house), and I never made it to Mill Cove. I did, however catch them in Groton before they hit the Northeast Corridor.
As I had mentioned, Nick gave me a call when NR-2 was heading out of Plainfield, and at that time I was about ready to leave the house. Well, between traffic and stoplights, I wasn’t able to get far enough ahead of them to get to Mill Cove in time. So I tried to catch them at the USS Nautilus overlook park south of the sub base. I pulled in there just as the gates were going down and caught them there. But looking across the river I noticed something – the MV Carolyn Chouest was heading north in the river. As a side note, the Chouest normally works with the Navy research sub NR-1, but the NR-1 finished its last mission, and is in the process of being decomissioned. Anyways, I got a couple shots of NR-2 heading south, as the Chouest was heading north.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7633] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7632]From there, it was off to the Shore Line somewhere. As I passed under the tracks on Fairview ave, I heard horns to the west – it sounded like an Acela was heading across the bridge. So I set up for a shot on the side of Fairview Ave, and got a shot of the trailing power car crossing over Fairview.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7631]As they passed by, I headed for the parking lot south of the Groton wye to meet up with Nick, David & Jon. While there, we were trying to figure out where NR-2 would be going – west or east? A couple minutes later, we could hear the train begin to pull to the north, then come into view, and head down the east leg.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7630]OK, they’re heading to Tilcon in Groton first. Now could we make it down behind the motel and get a shot of the train crossing over to track 4? It was worth a try…
Well, we did make it down there in time, and got a series of shots of NR-2 heading past us.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7629] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7628] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7627] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7626] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7625]Not long after NR-2 headed out of sight, we heard horns to the west – sounded like a regional was heading our way. A couple minutes later, an eastbound Amtrak Northeast Regional – Amtrak train 190 – came into view, and rolled past us.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7624] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7623] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7622]Not too bad. As we stood there and chatted for a bit, I heard something on the scanner about a light engine move heading east for the bridge. Interesting…well, it was worth waiting around to catch this before heading into the office.
A minute or so later, a lone P42DC rolled into view past the Groton Tower and towards us
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7621] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7620]As the locomotive got closer to us, the engineer gave us a smoke & flame show.
[cpg_imagefixthumb:7619] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7618] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7617]I guess as the unit passed by us, the conductor gave us the one finger salute too…wish I got a shot of that…
As an interesting side note, Mark Shenking got a shot of both the light engine move and 190 at Old Saybrook earlier that morning. Check it out here if you’re interested.
After the engine headed past us, we parted ways, and I headed to work.
Thanks for looking!
Tom
