Yeah, a bit late on this one. Just coming off of a really busy weekend with a large family party we hosted at home. So here’s last Friday’s post, a few days behind schedule.
The clear blue sky streak continues here in southeastern Connecticut. Taking advantage of that, I headed for Mill Cove in Ledyard to catch Providence & Worcester train NR-2 while on my usual daily walk. I also decided to run a roll of slide film through my Graflex Pacemaker 23 Speed Graphic. So when I got to the cove, I began setting up – loading the rollfilm back on the Speed Graphic, setting up the tripod and using my 20D to meter the scene. While I was doing all of this, NR-2 reported to the Worcester dispatcher that they were south of MP12 and about 15 minutes from the sub base. Perfect – I’d have enough time to set things up at the south end of Mill Cove before NR-2 showed up.
About 10 minutes later, the scanner again came alive as NR-2 reported to the Worcester dispatcher that they were south of MP5. I rechecked all of my settings on the Speed Graphic, and prepared to take both digital and film shots. Moments later, NR-2 began to sound for the crossing at Red Top, just to the north of the cove. Next they rolled onto the causeway between the cove and the Thames River. I decided on the wide angle lens today, as opposed to my usual telephoto from this spot. I waited and took the Speed Graphic shot first, then switched to the 20D and grabbed these shots of the train passing the southern part of the cove.
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Not bad – I’ll get the slides back tomorrow, so stay tuned for the scans. So I packed things up and headed back south. As I caught up to NR-2 at the south end of Fairview yard, the Amtrak Shore Line dispatcher was going to hold them there for a pair of Acelas, so it looked like I won’t catch NR-2 crossing the river. Oh, well. I stopped anyways to get a shot of the ongoing bridge work.
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Then I heard horns across the river – an eastbound Acela was heading through New London. I figured I could stay a couple more minutes to bag this train. A minute later, they hit the bridge, and I got a couple shots of the trainset traversing the Thames River drawbridge.
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Happy with what I got, I packed up and began my normal southward trek. But as I was riding south, I heard the westbound Acela hit the Midway detector just to the east of Groton. That meant they were right here, and NR-2 would be following them west. So I stopped down by Garbo Lobster and got a really long shot of NR-2 crossing the bridge with a sailboat in the foreground waiting for a bridge opening.
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That was just the icing on the cake. Camera hit the bag, and I hit the office for the remainder of the day.
Thanks for looking!
Tom
2 thoughts on “NR-2 and an Acela on 9/21/07”
Tom,
Nice shots as usual. Can you tell me about “the Midway detector”? What is it?
Also, when does NR-2 head back north? I caught them heading across the swing bridge today at lunch time ( on their way to Saybrook I assume). I guess it would depend on how much work they gad down there.
Thanks,
Eric
Eric-
Thanks! The Midway detector is a defect detector located on the Amtrak Shore Line near the Amtrak Midway MoW facility in Groton (near Bluff Point State Park, and the old New Haven yard/roundhouse at Midway). It scans passing trains for overheating bearings, and dragging equipment.
As for NR-2 heading back north, typically it’s between 2 and 4pm, and like you said it depends on how much work they’ve got down along the Shore Line. Yep, they worked Tilcon at Midway before heading west to Old Saybrook yesterday.
-Tom