Tom & Tom’s adventures in Mass. – 3/10/07

Tom Mik, & I have been meaning to get together for a little railfanning & photography for a while, but our schedules never meshed. March 10th, however, things fell into place. So in the light of Pan Am Railway’s announcement that they’d be repainting 20 locomotives into the new blue & white scheme this year, we decided to head up to Pan Am’s District 4 to capture some of the “old” Guilford grey and orange roaming the rails. East Deerfield would be the first stop on our day long trek that would start with a few miscues, and ultimatley lead us to a unique three way meet.

FYI, there’s a few more pictures up on my photo gallery beyond what I’ve included here. Head here to check them out.

I got to Tom’s house on time at 6:30am, and he was ready to roll with his truck running. So we loaded my gear and hit the road minutes later. Once we got off of I-91 in Greenfield, we made the normal fisrt stop – no, not railfan’s bridge, but Dunkin’ Donuts for a couple coffees. Then it was over to the west end of East Deerfield yard. When we got there, not much was going on – a trio of units idling at the crew trailer, and a couple more at the sand racks. So we grabbed a shot of the units at the crew trailer, and one of the snow jet parked by the tower, and decided to head to the east end of the yard.

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We were hoping for maybe a shot of the hump switcher coming across the Connecticut River bridge in the early morning light. So over to the bridge we went. And we waited…and waited…and waited. Looks like there was nothing doing there, so we shot back over to the west end of the yard – no change there either. Hmmm, maybe it’ll be a slow day in District 4. So we headed east to see if we could run into anything.

First stop would be Montague. As we drove over the tracks in Montague, what did we see – an empty coal train passing below us!!!

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So after some choice words we turned around and high tailed it back to EDY. There was no way we could make it back to the CT River bridge, so we went straight for the west end of the yard. Once we got there, the empty coal train, powered by a pair of NS widecabs, the leader being an ex-Conrail C40-8 still in CR blue, made it’s way through the yard.

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He then set the handbrakes on the cars, cut the power off, and moved the power to the servicing area, but in a rather different way – they pulled down the loop to the Connecticut River line, and waited at the signal. Perhaps a switch problem, but it afforded some different photo angles. OK, maybe things were starting to look up. As usual, I took a few shots of the crew doing their things.

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We figured that there should be at least another westbound out there, so we headed back towards Montague. Boy were we wrong. As we turned onto Route 5 in Deerfield, we saw an eastbound crawling towards the yard. Damn! So a quick U-turn, and we were racing back to the railfan bridge. We got there just ahead of the train, which turned out to be the crew of MOED (Mohawk, NY to East Deerfield, MA) bringing in outlawed SEED’s (Selkirk, NY to East Deerfield) train. Power was another NS widecab, followed by three MEC widecab GP40s. They made their way under the old signal bridge in some sweet morning light.

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This wouldn’t be the last train of the day we’d catch, but unfortunatley it would be the last of the sunlight we’d be able to use – soon after that the clouds started rolling in. In some ways, that was actually a good thing.

Once SEED pulled into the yard, we finally heard a bit of radio chatter – a rarity on this day – the crew bringing SEED into EDY would be taxied east to pick up another train. So we figured we’d head east to try to find this elusive train. As we cruised along Route 2 in Erving, we came across the outlawed train – NMED (Northern Maine Junction to East Deerfield), getting the fresh crew.

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We grabbed a few shots, then headed back west to catch them crossing the Millers River, then again where the PAR line parallels the New England Central.

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We figured we were well enough ahead of him and could get to the Connecticut River bridge at the east end of EDY. So we sped along, and got caught behind a couple locals barely doing the speed limit. Finally we arrived at the overlook below the bridge. And we waited…and waited…and waited. No way they could have gotten ahead of us. So we gave it 10 more minutes listening to the birds and water passing by. Nothing.

Back to the west end of the yard revealed that in fact, NMED did get ahead of us and was able to yard his train, cut off his power and pull down to the service area. Oh, well – the bad timing continued. At that point we decided to stop trapsing around PAR territory, and go for a little more “target rich environment” – CSX’s Boston Line.

We started out with a drive through West Springfield yard – one long westbound was getting ready to depart, so we hightailed it out to Westfield, MA, at CP-107, where the Pioneer Valley RR and CSX connect. A quick look at the signals showed a westbound was due in under a restricting signal. So we waited a bit, and here came a westbound Amtrak through Westfield.

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We knew the freight wasn’t far behind, so we waited around. While waiting, I shot a few pictures of the surrounding scenery. One interesting one is of the old bridge crossing the river, still with rail in place.

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Not too long after that here came the freight out of West Springfield – a quite long train (109 cars, if I remember correctly), and he was crawling along.

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As the markers passed, we noticed they were slowing down, to a stop just past the signals. OK, what’s up? The other odd thing is that the signal never changed to stop after the train passed, but rather remained at restricting.

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A quick check of the eastbound signals showed a clear. Hmm, could this mean a possible three way meet? Well, for that to happen, there would need to be another westbound in the picture.

Not long after that, we heard a horn to the east at Salt City – here comes the westbound. It was a short train, and he crawled to a stop just beyond the signals, within view of the first westbound’s markers.

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About 5 agonizing minutes later, the eastbound Amtrak came around the corner, giving us a nice three way meet.

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As soon as the Amtrak was out of the viewfinders, we hurried – well, as fast as we could hurry across a sheet of ice – around to get a shot of the short second westbound splitting the signals. We got there just as he was readying to pull his train west. A nice way to wrap up a day along the rails.

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And this one caught my eye as he passed, with the US flag waving behind him.

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From there, we did a quick drive through West Springfield again. Not finding much going on, except for some idling locomotives.

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With the lack of action, and waning light, we decided to call it a day, and headed home. I’d say, despite the fits and starts at the beginning of the day, we did rather well. Can’t beat a good day of trains, photos and conversation!

Thanks for looking & enjoy!
Tom Nanos