MBTA F40PH-2C 1050 wrote:ferroequinologist wrote:I'm not in-the-know enough to give more details, but I saw a pair of locos pulling a consist of mostly boxcars from the yard in Mansfield onto the NEC southbound. Wasn't close enough to ID any #s, unfortunately.
While I'm posting here, I'm a bit of a newcomer to freight-watching in general, and don't know much about the CSX operations in the area, so I'm having trouble filling in the blanks by reading through this thread. Anyone mind filling me in on what runs where, what the yards in Mansfield and Readville are used for exactly, etc?
That would be B733 that you witnessed in Mansfield. That is the local freight that services the "Chocolate" industrial park (lumber loads, food loads, paper loads), just North ( RR East) of Mansfield station, as well as "Zayers" ( West Mansfield Ind. Park----various loads) just South ( RR West) of Mansfield. They work M-F, based out of Walpole, and are usually in Mansfield by 10am to put their train together from the nights drop off from B725 (Framingham - Mansfield - Attleboro - return--which is an overnight job, usually in Mansfield after 1:30am and return round 4am) ...any whooo, you can catch B733 returning to the Framingham subdivision to head home anywhere between 2pm and as late as 6pm, depending on their work load and how the Amtrak Mainline traffic is operating. hope that helps!
Thanks for the summary! So would the B733 have reversed after I saw it to get to the "chocolate" industrial park, or was it headed south/west? Judging by the speed I don't think it was about to reverse--it accelerated through mansfield at a pretty good clip.
Anyway, let me make sure I have this straight: B725 drops off cars in Mansfield and Attleboro overnight from Framingham. B733 puts these cars on the right sidings during the day, from Walpole through Mansfield. Is that right?
Also, is the "chocolate" name anachronistic now? The reason I saw it was that I was biking through Mansfield, and the chocolate factory doesn't look like it's running, and I didn't get the delicious smell of chocolate as I biked by.