Pan Am Worcester Main Line

Around noon today stumbled upon a stationary 427 with last car just clear of the Shrewsbury St Xing and head 3 engines adjacent to the Seven Hills building on Rt 12. Thats about a mile and a half of train (and of course, blocking the Burncote St extansion).

They were 130 cars long at Chester several hours later, passing a waiting M426 with 153 cars.

It seems like M426/427 run late night now and I think there have been some days they haven't run at all.

Video from Millers Railfan shows M426 led by CSXT 477 and 5 other units through Clinton at 23:30 on Monday about 130 cars.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JukSbX8 ... WL&index=2

I see on the Chester train log that today's M426 was through Chester at 07:30 with CSXT 482 and again 5 additional units.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STjE9ajfSOQ

427 disturbed my slumber in West Boylston this morning at a time I did not bother to look at my clock but would estimate sometime in the 5 AM hour, and by the Westfield and Chester cams in the 9 AM hour.

And that M426 had two of the ET23DCMs on it: 1721 and 1727.

Also an SD70AC and SD 40-3 , I imagine the paparazzi will be out in force if they make it to the Worcester line before sunset.

What will be on the SD70AC and SD 40-3 coming into Worcester that will be so photogenic?

I hope the ET23s are headed for Maine... Rigby and Waterville could really use some better yard power than the ex-PAR junk, and the ET23s would also provide a welcome reduction in air pollution for folks who live near the yards.

Maritimes traffic over the worcester route seems way up since keag reopened. Lots of paper and lumber loads moving on 427 from Irving.

While L070 has been running at night, I have noticed a return of larger trains parked out by PT Tower stretching over the Fore River. Without the water traffic too this is a very good sign.

Still a lot of meat to pick off that bone too, but the next step they need to get L070, 071 and 072 consolidated into a single road job operating 7 days a week, which will require a lot of other things to fall in place operationally. Still some work to do.

Like another construction season of track work

F74265A wrote:Maritimes traffic over the worcester route seems way up since keag reopened. Lots of paper and lumber loads moving on 427 from Irving.

I would assume some of this traffic is being diverted off of CP; but I am curious if anyone knows if any of it is being diverted off of CN? Prior to Keag reopening, the reports of activity on CP west out of Brownsville Jct seemed to show maybe 30 to 40 non-intermodal cars per day... implying that even if CSX were to capture 100% of that traffic (which is unlikely), they'd be limited to 30 or 40 cars per day. And scanning through the recent reports on Intermodal to St John, it looks like the CP manifest traffic across Maine is around the same level it had been prior to Dec 1. Hence, my wondering if some of this traffic had been routed over CN prior to reopening of Keag?

It is wild to consider that Irving can originate a load in St John and have *three* options to get it to a place like New Orleans involving only one interchange.

Well, its harder to know when trains pass thru West Boylston these days since they moved the new dragging equipment and hot-box detector from near Rt 140 xing (new mp 18.2, old 7.8) to near Burncoat st in Worcester. Maybe the DWSP wanted defective trains stopped before getting into the watershed area.

Where exaxtly did CSX relocate the HB Detector before Burncoat extention. Is it about 250' west of the crossing at Burncoat extention?

rustyrails wrote:Where exaxtly did CSX relocate the HB Detector before Burncoat extention. Is it about 250' west of the crossing at Burncoat extention?

Eyeballed it during 02-17-2024 daylight, and the paddle-dragger and case are visible a bit E of the Burncoat XNG. Guessing the designation is 21.3 since Burncoat is 21.4.