EDAY/AYED

Couple shots from the last couple days,

ED8 with 90. 30 for Fitch, 60 for Ayer.


ED9 with 14 loads of trash, and 25 empty rax.

ED-9 given permission by D2 to depart CPF-309 (Graniteville Westford, Ma) at about 18:45 hrs. 11/13/21 with NS power. Heard via scanner.

Yesterdays ED8 behind 3 NS,
51 P&W's
41 san vel rax

Todays ED8 behind 2 NS and a CN visitor,
41 Fitchs
5 double stack trash (50 containers)
40 san vel rax

The amount of tonnage PAS is moving (or could be moving to be more accurate) really continues to puzzle the mind why NS is unwilling to take over operations, especially considering what they have spent and continue to spend on other regions with far less traffic base.

It really is. ED9 is over a mile and a half long everyday. ED8 has been bringing 40 rax almost daily to san vel. POED had to help clear a track in Fitchburg today, they had 9 units and 130 cars. They canned at Parkers and barely fit between Parkers and 345. The grain train was also in Fitchburg today.

There is an ED8 canned at Gardner now head end right at the 345 signal, tail 50ft from the 346 signal. Solid Ayer train of trash/rax.

ED9 canned at Tyter with the 7542 leading about 40 empty rax.

Last night around 9PM (11/29), I heard D2 tell ED-8 they would go to North Chelmsford to wye the power. I would guess it would make sense since leaving empty auto racks at Graniteville has become common practice and POAY arrives at Ayer around 10PM adding to congestion in that area.

Just a guess but perhaps only the lead unit on ED-8 had ACSES PTC capability, as opposed to having one unit on each end of the power set with such capability. If so, it might have been easier at that hour to wye the power on Pan Am's non-PTC track at N Chelmsford rather than backing from CPF-WL to CPF-AY on MBTA track with a PTC-less leader to enable the PTC unit to lead west to CPF-335.

That would make sense, but that logic echoes the logic of a decade or so ago when the pre-PAR/S way to deal with the lack of telemetry was to hang hind-end helpers on Ashburnham Hill trains over telemetry-free tonnage. Fuel, wear-and-tear, crew pay, and transportation fees all added up to money greater than the cost of sufficient telemetry.

Ayer must be a mess, 1400hrs today around Fitch..

ED8 6965 and a big train of Ayer trash and rax canned at CPF 333.

FI1 5948 was grabbing 25 Ayer freight and 2 empty Arrowheads that were dropped on the main between CPF 330 and CPF 333.

Big cut of loaded San Vel rax dropped on tge main at CPF FG.

At 16:34 ED-9 per D3 will leave Ayer after " next Inbound". Power is NS 6965, UP 7312, and NS 7688, 13 loads,13 empties which includes 7 trash.