Another muggy, foggy, hazy day today. But it wasn’t that hot – at least that made it bearable. So I made it out for my walk at the usual time, and headed, as usual, to Erickson Park in Ledyard. The sun was in and out, so the photo portion should come out OK. Like yesterday, the scanner stayed quiet for most of the time. I thought I might have a repeat of yesterday, and Providence & Worcester train NR-2 would be later than usual. As luck would have it, they’d be late, but not that late…
I took my walk today with the scanner, and the entire time it sat there silently scanning the airwaves, reporting nothing. So I figured it wasn’t in the cards to catch NR-2 today and headed for the car. As I sat in the car with the windows open, getting ready to fire it up & head back, a familiar rumble in the distance caught my attention. This wasn’t the typical rumble of the Smurfit-Stone container plant across the river in Montville, but sounded more like a GE locomotive. A second later, the scanner finally woke up and Rod’s voice came over, reporting to the dispatcher that they were south of MP-5. Oh, crap, they were close, and I wasn’t in position.
So I fired up the car, and made a quick sprint to the south end of Mill Cove. I got there just as NR-2 was sounding for the Red Top crossing. I picked my spot and got a shot of NR-2 rounding the bend, with the Harvard Boat House in the background.
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Then a couple broadside shots of just the lead power rolling along.
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And another couple run-of-the-mill shots of the trailing power
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Not bad for a short notice gig, so to speak. So I climbed in the car and headed back. I thought that I might be able to get ahead of them and get a shot of them crossing the Thames River bridge with the new work going on. So I made my way down Military Highway, and caught up to NR-2s head end when they were at the south end of Fairview. Just then Rod called into the Shore Line dispatcher asking for permission to head over to track 4 and Midway. Oh, well, no shot of NR-2 heading over the bridge today.
As usual, I headed back to work via Thames Street, and decided to make a stop at the parking lot by the river to take a look at the work on the bridge. Nothing new, but a toot to the west caught my attention. An Acela was heading for the New London station. Cool, I’ll at least get a train in the shot with the new tower construction.
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And one shot of the Acela’s trailing power car heading towards the Groton shore.
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Just to make sure there wasn’t another Amtrak in the picture, I waited a couple minutes for the Amtrak dispatcher to give NR-2 clearance to head east to Track 4. When that happened, I turned around, and headed back to work for the rest of the day.
Thanks for looking!
Tom
