{"id":366,"date":"2008-04-22T23:09:47","date_gmt":"2008-04-23T03:09:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/2008\/04\/22\/earth-day-2008-necr-pw-and-amtrak\/"},"modified":"2008-04-22T23:09:47","modified_gmt":"2008-04-23T03:09:47","slug":"earth-day-2008-necr-pw-and-amtrak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/earth-day-2008-necr-pw-and-amtrak\/","title":{"rendered":"Earth Day 2008 – NECR, P&W and Amtrak"},"content":{"rendered":"

Well, we’re back from Florida, and today I went back to work, ending my week & a half of vacation. But I couldn’t pass up the mostly blue skies on this Earth Day, so I headed out in hope of catching at least the Providence & Worcester rolling through Ledyard. Well, I ended up getting a couple more trains in addition to the P&W, but as you can see from the sample image to the left, the P&W celebrated Earth Day with a smoke show. Of course, I’m kidding…I’m sure the smoke wasn’t intentional.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As luck had it, I had a hole in my schedule this morning, despite the pile of email from the past 10 days I had to wade through, so I headed out of the office to try and catch a little P&W action after a week photographing the Florida East Coast railway. I got out at my normal time, and of course the scanner went on to try and figure out what was going on.<\/p>\n

While heading north, the scanner was silent, so I figured on heading for milepost 7 on the P&W – there was barely any wind, so the tidal pool there should be pretty calm, yielding a nice reflection. The question is – did NR-2 already blast through, or were they still to the north?<\/p>\n

I got there, parked, and hiked down the hillside to the tracks and Thames River. A quick walk to the north, and I was at the tidal pool – smooth as glass. Perfect, now I just need a train. A quick look at the track told me that NR-2 hadn’t been through yet. OK, now where are they – the scanner was still silent, so for all I know they’re still in Plainfield.<\/p>\n

About 5 minutes went by, then the silence was broken by a chirp on the scanner – somebody was in the area. With the continued silence of the P&W frequencies, that meant it was most likely New England Central train 608 rolling south. Well, at least I’d be sure to catch one train…not the one I wanted, but it’s better than nothing. The waiting game continues…<\/p>\n

A bit later, a trio of headlights appeared in the trees across the river, and just then the P&W frequency lit up – NR-2 was south of MP12 and 15 minutes from the sub base. OK, here goes – things are falling into place.<\/p>\n

As 608 rolled south, I got a series of shots as they passed in front of me, with only the Thames River separating me from the train.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6740] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6739] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6738] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6737] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6736] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6735]\n

While 608 slipped out of sight, another trio of headlights appeared to the north – NR-2 was heading towards me. So I switched from the telephoto to the wide angle zoom and got into position at the shores of the tidal pool on the east side of the P&W tracks. More waiting – this time, though, I knew the train was coming soon.<\/p>\n

A couple minutes later, the rumble grew louder, and NR-2 came into view at the north end of the water, with the Preston trash-to-energy plant visible in the background, doing what it does – burning trash<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6734]\n

Then the shot I sized up prior – a vertical of NR-2 rolling along the calm water, and under nice blue skies.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6733]\n

Something mid-train caught my eye – a string of nice newly painted (possibly rebuilt) gondolas, all sporting ATW reporting marks (Atlantic & Western Railway in North Carolina – looks like shortline).<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6732]\n

Interesting. Then the tail end came into view, so the first shot I got was the trailing unit with the trash-to-energy plant still churning away<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6731]\n

And a broadside shot of the final CN gondola, along with the trailing locomotive<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6730]\n

Not too bad at all! Now to head south and try to catch NR-2 at Fairview. But as usual, that would depend on the other drivers on Route 12, as well as the traffic lights between me and the south end of the yard.<\/p>\n

Well, I did catch up to NR-2 along Military Highway south of the Nautilus, giving me enough time to get down to the bottom of Fairview and into position for a couple shots of the train rolling through the yard.<\/p>\n

First up is the train pulling into the yard<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6729]\n

Then a bit of a smoke show, as the train notches up, bringing the tail end of the train into the yard limits<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6728]\n

And a wide wedgie shot of the entire train<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6727]\n

As the cars rolled by, some graffiti caught my eye. Hmmm, I wonder why…heh…<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6726]\n

Nice use of the bolt as part of the picture…\u00a0 But I digress.<\/p>\n

One final going away shot of the head end pulling around the curve<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6725]\n

That would be it for me and NR-2 – they were told by the Amtrak Shore Line dispatcher that they’d be waiting to follow 2159, a southbound Acela. I really didn’t have time to hang around for that. So first up I got a couple shots of the bridge progress – the workers are starting to string cables that will support the new lift span<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6724] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6723] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6722]\n

After that, on my way in, I heard horns across the river in New London. It was a northbound Acela – train 2150 – coming through New London station. So I hung around to get a shot of the train crossing the bridge.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:6721]\n

Still hearing nothing from 2159, NR-2 would still remain at the Groton wye, so I called it a morning. Not too bad – 3 trains around the Thames.<\/p>\n

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

Well, we’re back from Florida, and today I went back to work, ending my week & a half of vacation. But I couldn’t pass up the mostly blue skies on this Earth Day, so I headed out in hope of catching at least the Providence & Worcester rolling through Ledyard. Well, I ended up getting […]<\/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-366","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\/366","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=366"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/366\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=366"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=366"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=366"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}