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Yes, this has to do with trains. The full circle part involves Providence & Worcester trains NR-2 and NR-3, as well as Amtrak Acela train 2159. The afternoon blur, well, you’ll just have to read on to see what I’m talking about with that one – it does involve New England Central train 608. 4 trains on 3 different railroads in a day – not a bad time trackside. And just to be clear, since this is a day late, all of this happened on Friday the 25th.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
I had a morning meeting that got canceled last minute, so I figured I’d take advantage of the hole in my schedule to head out for a walk on a beautiful morning. Where would I go? Like usual, the scanner would tell me.<\/p>\n
On the way north, P&W train NR-2 got some more track from the dispatcher – from MP12 to Fairview. The dispatcher also asked if he was heading south, or if they had any work in Norwich to do. Rod reported that they did have a couple moves to make at Norwich, so it would be a while before they were ready to head south. So that iced it for me – I decided on going up to Stoddard Cove and making the hike north to Poquetanuck Cove on the Ledyard\/Preston town line.<\/p>\n
I pulled into the parking area, and collected my gear for the 5 minute hike north. I got to the cove while NR-2 was still working in Norwich, so I started looking around for angles. While scouting around, the P&W frequency locked in, but this time it was the dispatcher reporting that NR-3 had no defects at the Jewett City detector. Interesting – could I maybe catch NR-3?<\/p>\n
A few minutes later, NR-2 reported that they were southbound and about 15 minutes from the sub base. That only put them a few minutes from me. So I decided on an angle – one that would get me a nice head on look of the approaching train, of course from a safe spot using the telephoto to give the illusion that I’m standing in the gauge of the tracks.<\/p>\n
About 5 minutes later, a trio of headlights poked through the trees to the north, then NR-2 started sounding for the crossing near the old Norwich Hospital. Soon the train was heading right for me.<\/p>\n
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Well, not really. Here’s a wider shot, showing the curve in the tracks. Oh, yeah, and as Rod notched up a bit, the 4001 started smoking a bit more<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6779]\n
No power on the tail end of the train, so I started walking back after they cleared. A shot caught my eye as the train came back into view to the south, right around MP7<\/p>\n
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Pretty cool. But on the way back to the car, NR-2 reported that they were south of MP4. The dispatcher then checked on the position of NR-3, and asked them if they could wait a few minutes for NR-2 to enter Fairview so he could then give them all the track between 12 and Fairview. OK, if things worked out I could probably catch NR-3 also.<\/p>\n
A couple minutes later, NR-2 reported that they were in Fairview, and the dispatcher then gave NR-3 the track to Fairview. I then set my sights on the tidal pool near MP7 – the wind was fairly calm, so there should be a nice reflection.<\/p>\n
I got there and was greeted with a nice and calm pool of water to the east of the tracks. A couple minutes passed by, and NR-3’s headlights came into view to the north. I opted for a wide shot as the train rolled along the calm water. So I put the wide zoom on and waited.<\/p>\n
As the rumble in the distance grew louder, I got ready. Then the train came into view.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6777]\n
But they had an odd configuration – locomotive, tank, locomotive, then a cut of Tilcon cars.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6776]\n
It looked like they were working Dow first, then heading south to bring the stone cars to the Tilcon Groton plant.<\/p>\n
OK, with that train in the books, could I get NR-2 again? Being this far north, I wasn’t able to pick up the Amtrak Shore Line frequency, so I’m not sure if NR-2 got out onto the corridor yet. Hell, it was worth a shot – I had a bit more time before I had to head back to the office.<\/p>\n
Rolling along Military Highway, I couldn’t see anything in Fairview, except for a cut of empty Tilcon cars that were there when I headed north. Once got off of Military Highway, and onto Fairview Ave, I saw NR-2 sitting down at the signal. Cool, I could catch them crossing the river!<\/p>\n
On the way by, a shot I had been wanting struck me. I wanted to get a shot of the US Submarine memorial, with the flags waving in the breeze, with the towers of the new Thames River drawbridge in the background. Today, everything worked, and I got a couple shots at the memorial, as NR-2 waited for their signal.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6775] [cpg_imagefixthumb:6774]\n
Listening to the Shore Line dispatcher, it sounded like he was holding NR-2 for Acela train 2159, and they just hit the Midway detector.<\/p>\n
A couple minutes later, the high speed train rolled across the Thames River drawbridge at about 15 MPH.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6773]\n
Not long after the Acela cleared New London, NR-2 was let onto the Shore Line<\/p>\n
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And that was it for the morning session.<\/p>\n
Fast forward a few hours to the early afternoon. I had to head home early, and like usual the scanner was on as I passed through Norwich & Franklin to see if the NECR was in town. As I got closer to Franklin, I started to hear NECR train 608 working Kofkoff. So I headed that way.<\/p>\n
When I got there it sounded like they were finishing up their work, preparing to head north. So instead of getting a shot I’ve already got, I headed north a bit, and ended up at Pound Hill Road.<\/p>\n
I could still hear the train working, but it sounded like they were on their final moves, so I scouted around for an angle. I found one that I liked, but of course, it involved a hike down into the river.<\/p>\n
I got to the edge of the river and waited. A couple minutes later the crossing signal activated, then was followed by 608 blowing for the crossing. Seconds later, the train was in my viewfinder.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6782]\n
But I botched the settings – I forgot that the train would be doing about 30 by this point, so there’s a bit of motion blur on the passing locomotive.<\/p>\n
But taking the blur a bit further, I went for a blur shot of the train rolling over the bridge.<\/p>\n
[cpg_imagefixthumb:6781]\n
Once the train cleared, I made my way back out of the river, and to the car, and headed home.<\/p>\n
Thanks for looking!
\nTom<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yes, this has to do with trains. The full circle part involves Providence & Worcester trains NR-2 and NR-3, as well as Amtrak Acela train 2159. The afternoon blur, well, you’ll just have to read on to see what I’m talking about with that one – it does involve New England Central train 608. 4 […]<\/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":[133,2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-368","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-nautical-photography","7":"category-rail_photography","8":"czr-hentry"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","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=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}