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I had to go into work late this morning, so I had the scanner whirring away on my way in. Maybe I’d catch a little train action on my way, and with any luck I’d catch both the NECR and P&W – both would be in the area. OK, the title gives it away – I did catch both trains on my way in. Read on for the details…<\/p>\n
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I had some errands to run in Willimantic before heading into work, so I was traveling down Route 32 in Franklin with the scanner doing its job. As I was descending Franklin Hill, the P&W frequency locked in with a crackly transmission – it sounded like NR-2 was southbound out of Plainfield. OK, maybe I could catch them in Norwich. So I set my sights on the area around MP12 for my first stop.<\/p>\n
A mile or so further down 32, the NECR frequency began picking up chatter. That meant that 608 was working the Cargill area in Franklin. OK, maybe I’ll make a stop there first to see what’s going on.<\/p>\n
Pulling in behind the American Cancer Society showed 608 working Cargill.<\/p>\n
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Listening to the scanner it sounded like they’d be there a while, so I figured I’d head out and grab a bagel for a little breakfast. As I climbed back into the truck, the scanner locked into the P&W frequency. NR-2 hit the Jewett City detector. OK, no time for breakfast now. I made a bee line for Norwich Harbor, where the Quinnebaug River empties into the head of the Thames.<\/p>\n
I got there a few minutes before the train arrived, allowing me time to scout out the angles. I opted for a spot close to where the train would be rolling past, getting some of the houses on the hill in the background, as well as a nice reflection in the water below. A couple minutes later, I heard horns to the north, followed by the familiar flange squeal as the train rolled through the tunnel under Route 2. Moments later, the train came into view.<\/p>\n
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Today, there was a long string of newly painted OGIX stone hoppers on the head end. Well, most were nice and clean – about midway through, some taggers got their grubby mitts on a few cars.<\/p>\n
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Jeez, and we railfans get hassled – these guys can spend hours on railroad property, spray painting private property without a problem…sorry, but I digress… Midway through the train there was one tank car – otherwise NR-2 was a unit OGIX stone train! Finally, the tail end came through the tunnel and rolled past milepost 12<\/p>\n
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Now the challenge – can I get ahead of the train and nab them at Mill Cove in Ledyard? It would look really cool with a nearly unit train coming around the curve… Hopefully the traffic lights will cooperate.<\/p>\n
Today was my lucky day – not only did the slow drivers make turns along the way, but the lights cooperated and got me to Erickson Park a few minutes ahead of NR-2.<\/p>\n
As soon as I heard the marker, I headed to the south end of the cove & got into position. A moment later, NR-2 called the Worcester dispatcher, informing him that they were south of MP5. Showtime!<\/p>\n
Right after the horns for Red Top, the train headed into the curve at milepost 4<\/p>\n
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And the shot I wanted – the entire train bent around the curve at the top of the cove<\/p>\n
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Then a bit wider<\/p>\n
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And even wider still, this time with the Harvard Boat House in the background, which with the crane barge looks like is having some work done to the pier.<\/p>\n
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Finally a couple at the south end of the cove<\/p>\n
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And to wrap things up, a couple shots of the trailing power<\/p>\n
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After that, I didn’t have time to get the train crossing the Thames – I still needed to get a little breakfast into me before heading to work. So my next stop would be Dunkin’ Donuts for a coffee and sandwich.<\/p>\n
Thanks for looking!
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I had to go into work late this morning, so I had the scanner whirring away on my way in. Maybe I’d catch a little train action on my way, and with any luck I’d catch both the NECR and P&W – both would be in the area. OK, the title gives it away – […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-331","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-rail_photography","7":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=331"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/331\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=331"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=331"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=331"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}