August 27th – a Friday – graced us with some beautiful weather – and a half day at work for me. That ended up translating into two trains and a submarine that crossed in front of my lens. The odd thing was the power used on one of the trains – they were quite a distance from their home turf. Still made for an interesting train to shoot.
That morning, I managed to get out for a few minutes and shoot Providence & Worcester train NR-2 heading south past the USS Nautilus in Groton. Then on my way back to the office, a Los Angeles class fast attack sub was heading home – and I managed to get a shot of both the sub and Amtrak train 171 boarding passengers in New London. Then I took advantage of our summer hours policy, and headed out around 2pm, hoping that the empty unit ethanol train was still around. I managed to get a quick shot of PW K667 pulling off of the Thames River drawbridge on the New London side of the river. With the train still in the picture, I decided a chase was in order – especially with the beautiful sunlight. But the clincher was the fact that the NECR leg – manned by the 608 crew – had a pair of FEC GP40s for power. So I chased them from New London up to Willimantic before heading to the girls’ gymnastics practice. And along the way on the NECR side of the river, I ran into Rich Barnett again. Made for a great chase – always nice to have good conversation to pass the time while we waited for the train to show up. And don’t worry Rich, I didn’t work in any pictures of you this time around… But I did put another local railfan into a picture in Willimantic – ran into Jim Van down in Franklin, then he joined me later in Willimantic where we shared some sweet late afternoon golden sunlight.
[cpg_album:762]Thanks for looking!
Tom
