Deerfield to East Portal - 3mph??

I was returning home today and stopped by the Deerfield yard in time to catch a train heading west to the portal around 2:30-3pm. Thinking, 'Great, I can meet it around Charlemont and race it to the portal (which I've done before)' I headed out and waited by Shelburne Falls. And waited for another 30 minutes till it finally showed up and crawled through town. Figured longer distance so no biggie. Headed to a pull-off on 2 about a mile and 1/2 down the road and waited another 10 minutes before .......

Long story short, was it this individual train running painfully slow or is it something I'm not thinking of? (the only thing that comes to mind is hurricane damage)

The tracks have been repaired. There are a few 10 mph slowdowns between Deerfield and the tunnel but not enough to be that slow. My guess is they lost the code on the signals and were running at restricted speed.

The train you saw EDRJ was meeting MOED at Buckland, EDRJ was on the slower #1 track. MOED had a speedo out of East Portal and, around the 8A crossing in Charlemont.

malbojah wrote:Long story short, was it this individual train running painfully slow or is it something I'm not thinking of? (the only thing that comes to mind is hurricane damage)

Um, just so I get this straight, you saw a slow Pan Am train and the only thing that came to mind was hurricane damage? How about:

1. Deferred maintenance
2. One operating locomotive and 100 cars with three dead locos
3. Corporate sold a short section of the mainline for a condo complex
4. The train was canned so long the Earth was turning beneath it
5. They were attempting to roll a string of cars from one yard to the next with gravity out of sheer frustration

Any others that I missed? (Pan Am employees lighten up just a little humor!)

TPR37777 wrote:

malbojah wrote:Long story short, was it this individual train running painfully slow or is it something I'm not thinking of? (the only thing that comes to mind is hurricane damage)

Um, just so I get this straight, you saw a slow Pan Am train and the only thing that came to mind was hurricane damage? How about:

1. Deferred maintenance
2. One operating locomotive and 100 cars with three dead locos
3. Corporate sold a short section of the mainline for a condo complex
4. The train was canned so long the Earth was turning beneath it
5. They were attempting to roll a string of cars from one yard to the next with gravity out of sheer frustration

Any others that I missed? (Pan Am employees lighten up just a little humor!)

You forgot about the sun in their eyes

Honestly though I've been outrun by a flock of turkeys before. Swear to god.

Was the same deal last week with every train I saw. Crawl through the tunnel and Soapstone, track speed at Zoar.....then crawl from Charlemont to Buckland. Westbounds are waiting a very long time at Buckland for eastbounds to get by them....