{"id":340,"date":"2008-02-22T21:24:43","date_gmt":"2008-02-23T01:24:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/2008\/02\/22\/snowy-railfanning\/"},"modified":"2008-02-22T21:24:43","modified_gmt":"2008-02-23T01:24:43","slug":"snowy-railfanning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/snowy-railfanning\/","title":{"rendered":"Snowy railfanning"},"content":{"rendered":"

Winter is winding down on the calendar, but today we got a pretty good snowstorm here in southern New England. So after I was at work for a while this morning, I grabbed my laptop and headed home to get ahead of the morons who never seem to learn how to drive in the snow (everyone from the guys in their new 4×4 who think they can tool along at 60…until they have to stop when they find out they’re like everyone else – to the person on the other end of the scale who drives 5 MPH on dry roads). But of course, I took the scenic way home. That netted me a few trains. Well, to be honest one was on the way into work…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My normal commute brings me down Route 87 into Franklin, where it crosses the New England Central just before Route 32. As I approached the crossing, an SUV parked near the tracks caught my eye. The owner of the truck was loading a tripod and camera back into the vehicle. I thought “railfan?” Then as I rolled over the grade crossing, I saw that the flangeways were freshly cleaned out. It looks like 608 is in town! So I fired up the scanner, and I was greeted with the chirp of the marker. Cool! Now where is he? He couldn’t be that far away, if this guy was just putting his gear away.<\/p>\n

Now on 32 I was trying to see down onto the tracks hoping to spot 608 somewhere in the woods. Finally, as I crossed over the tracks near Route 2, I saw 608 rolling south past the Yantic fire house. The chase was on…now if only these people who don’t know how to drive would get out of my way.<\/p>\n

As luck would have it, everyone in front of me went onto Route 2, and I continued on West Town Street, then took a right onto Otrobando Ave to see if I could get ahead of them. As I pulled onto Otrobando, I saw the train roling past me, and one car caught my eye. A boxcar with NOKL reporting marks. Those are typically spotted at Phelps-Dodge, just to the south. So that meant they were probably switching them first.<\/p>\n

I kept driving south, just in case, to maybe catch them by Benny’s. But not long after I heard scanner chatter indicating that they had begun switching Phelps. So a quick turnaround was in order to head back to the scene.<\/p>\n

I got there as they were getting ready to shove into the customer, and a different angle struck my eye. So of course I grabbed it.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6115]\n

A quick look at my watch, and I decided it was time to head to the office.<\/p>\n

Fast forward a couple hours. I got out early, with laptop in head, and headed north. But of course, I took the long way home, and set my sights on Mill Cove. But just as I was leaving the parking lot at work, I heard NR-2 report that they were south of MP12 and 15 minutes from the Sub Base. Hmmm, I’d be cutting it close, but it was worth a shot.<\/p>\n

As I got to the Sub Base south gate, the radio again locked into the P&W frequency with NR-2 reporting that they were south of MP5. Damn…onto Plan B – Fairview.<\/p>\n

I got to the bottom of Fairview well in advance of the train, allowing me to walk a bit down the tracks to get into position. A few minutes later, a trio of headlights pierced the falling snow as the train approached. Into view came a very short NR-2<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6114]\n

Then I got a couple other shots as the train got closer<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6113] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6112]\n

And finally a quick change of the lenses for the wide angle, and I got a shot of the train passing my be, as Rod also opened up the window to say “hi”<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6111]\n

I got one going away shot with the trailing unit wearing some snow on her nose.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6110]\n

The train then slowed down as they approached the Fairview Ave overpass. A conductor got out and moved to the rear unit<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6109]\n

Then as the train moved again to the Amtrak signal, I headed back to the truck. And from the sounds of things on the scanner, NR-2 would be waiting around for a bit before they headed west on the Shore Line. So I headed across the river to see if I could find the NECR again.<\/p>\n

First stop, though, was in New London to see if I could get a decent view of the new lift span for the Thames River drawbridge. The only shot I could get was from the F&F Distributors parking lot. So I got a couple shots of the nearly complete span.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6108] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6107]\n

Then I continued north. No luck in coming across 608 again, but while I was in Montville, I did hear P&W train NR-3 hit the Jewett City detector. Maybe I could beat them to Norwich and get a shot of them along the waterfront.<\/p>\n

Well, as things would have it, I didn’t catch NR-3 where I had hoped. As I was waiting at a light on Route 2, NR-3 rolled past. But I stuck around and attemted a shot across the water, and through quite a bit of falling snow. It was tough for the camera to get a focus lock, but I managed to squeeze off a couple frames. Here’s one of a short NR-3 heading south for Dow Chemical.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6106]\n

By then, the snow was picking up again, and I figured it would be best for me to head to the homefront for the rest of the day. So into the truck I went, and I continued my trek north. This time, the direct route…<\/p>\n

Thanks for looking!
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter is winding down on the calendar, but today we got a pretty good snowstorm here in southern New England. So after I was at work for a while this morning, I grabbed my laptop and headed home to get ahead of the morons who never seem to learn how to drive in the snow […]<\/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-340","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\/340","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=340"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/340\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=340"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=340"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=340"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}