{"id":408,"date":"2008-07-01T22:07:14","date_gmt":"2008-07-02T02:07:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nanosphoto.com\/blog\/2008\/07\/01\/pw-nr2-amtrak-acela-and-the-saga-monal\/"},"modified":"2008-07-01T22:07:14","modified_gmt":"2008-07-02T02:07:14","slug":"pw-nr2-amtrak-acela-and-the-saga-monal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/pw-nr2-amtrak-acela-and-the-saga-monal\/","title":{"rendered":"PW NR2, Amtrak Acela and the Saga Monal"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another hazy, hot & humid day today. But a gap in the schedule gave me a chance to head out and hopefully catch some rail action, and possibly some blue skies peeking through the clouds. Well, I ended up with both, along with a lumber ship at the New London State Pier – something that hasn’t happened in quite some time. So that made for a nice change of pace this morning, and more than made up for the hazy skies. OK, it really wasn’t that <\/em>hazy…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

On my way north this morning, something big and orange caught my eye in the Thames River, so I pulled into the parking lot near Garbo Lobster. When I parked, I saw the ship Saga Monal<\/em> being aided to the State Pier by a pair of tugboats.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7405]\n

OK, not a bad start. Still no sign of the P&W on the scanner, so I headed north, setting my sights on the tidal pool at MP7. I figured it was a bit clearer today than it was yesterday<\/a>, so hopefully I could get a couple more good shots there.<\/p>\n

I got there, parked, grabbed my gear and headed down by the river. As I got there, I heard NR-2 switching up in Norwich, so I had a bit of time before they were on the scene.<\/p>\n

A few minutes later, Rod made the call to the dispatcher and reported that NR-2 was south of MP12, putting them a couple minutes from me. So I got into position along the tidal pool – again calm and glass-like.<\/p>\n

While waiting, I saw the headlights to the north pull through the old Norwich Hospital, and then something else caught my eye. A boat was coming south as well. I thought I might be able to get both the boat & train in the same frame. So I went back to the shore of the Thames, and switched to the telephoto. Moments later I got a shot of the boat coming at me as NR-2 was pulling over the Preston\/Ledyard town line a bit further north.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7404]\n

OK, pretty good catch there, but now I had to get back to the other side of the tidal pool (which involves walking through some muck) and switch back to the wide angle lens.<\/p>\n

I got there just as NR-2 was pulling onto the causeway.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7403]\n

Then the shot I was looking for – a wider reflection shot, with some blue sky and clouds in the frame<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7402]\n

Then the unusual thing – what looked like a mid-train helper.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7401]\n

But it really wasn’t. NR-2 was just bringing a cut of Tilcon cars south for NR-3. They’d drop the cars in Fairview yard, where NR-3 would later come along and bring them to the Tilcon Groton plant.<\/p>\n

Next stop would be a quick visit to the Thames River drawbridge, as my time was getting short.<\/p>\n

When I got there, I got a shot of the Saga Monal<\/em> now tied to the pier.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7400]\n

Listening to the scanner, it sounded like NR-2 would be waiting for Amtrak Acela trains 2150 and 2159 before heading west. A few seconds later, 2150 crossed Shaw’s Cove, so I figured I’d get a couple shots of them before heading back to the office.<\/p>\n

A minute or so later, 2150 made their way over the new drawbridge towards Groton.<\/p>\n

[cpg_imagefixthumb:7399] [cpg_imagefixthumb:7398]\n

And then called it a day. Not a bad take for the morning.<\/p>\n

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

Another hazy, hot & humid day today. But a gap in the schedule gave me a chance to head out and hopefully catch some rail action, and possibly some blue skies peeking through the clouds. Well, I ended up with both, along with a lumber ship at the New London State Pier – something that […]<\/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-408","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\/408","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=408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/408\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nanosphoto.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}