"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

No classes till late in the day, so I took off for up nawth this morning. When I climbed in the truck it was a balmy 39 degrees, perfect shorts weather and don't let anyone tell you otherwise! Up to 'Keag by 7:30 after a stop for scanner batteries. I stopped in the Perma-Treat parking lot and waited. Nothing much going on, oil train power sitting on the pad. I clicked picture 1 at about 7:45, it had warmed all the way up to 45 degrees. --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189786 <-- 515's been running smokey for a while now, that pictures taken with them at idle. At the other side of the yard, Depot St. there was a fricken army there. 25 or so in vizzy-vests, with 8 or 10 cold diesel motors coughing to life. The days battle was to start at about 8:30 I was told, but we'll get there. No pictures, sorry, but I have a rule about pictures with employees on the ground...

Not one to sit bored very well, I headed the 25 minutes to Millinocket, waste of gas, 1 MMA hirailer and a whole lot of pulp and chip cars. On to Brownville, which was also dead, but worth the time. There were 2 AMT/SLC F40's hidden way down, an ex.UP GP, leased to NBSR I would wager, VB-3, an MMA C30-7 in blue and yellow, and the winner of course, was back to back IC&E units 6421 and 6400(?) --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189794 <-- By now it had reached 65 and was actually hot sitting there in the sun.

Bored again with nothing moving, it was down to Brownville for some gas then back to Millinocket. Still dead, so I headed back to 'Keag. I followed a taxi all the way from Millinocket to Keag. For once luck was with me, it was a crew van bringing fresh legs to Eastern Maine Railroad. I pulled in the lot off Depot St. right behind them, shocked to see 3 NBSR leased SD40-2's sitting on the main. --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189817 <----> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189816 <--We were up to 73 degrees, was a really beautiful day at this point. Knowing they would be there a while, I headed to the other side of the yard. 3004 and the oil power came off the pad and headed across the street to hook up to a POSJ block sitting there. --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189810 <-- I assumed NBSR was intown for POSJ, but a section of oil was on its way and the SD's may have been there for that. Its also possible they will combine POSJ, the oil and both sets of power...don't know though. I was short on time, and yet to capture the days goal on camera it was back to Depot St. Lucky again! --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189803 <----> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189805 <-- That brings the total track machine count to 10-12. between Keag and Lincoln. The pile of ties at Keag was impressive --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189800 <-- thats down from pictures I saw taken a couple weeks back.
Officially late and then some I headed south. I stopped in Olamon to get a quick reference shot or 2. The ties, they just go, and go and go and go... --> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189813 <----> http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... id=3189814 <-- The track machines were working between miles 8 and 12 headed south. They had with them a fleet of hirailers. There was a truck at most crossings from Keag south to about mile 10. Ties are spread as far south Olamon or Greenbush. They have made it far enough to start staging tie gons in the yard at Old Town.
225 miles and 36 degrees later I climbed the steps to my room. It was 75 degrees, shorts weather after all!

Should add, I've seen reports that that section of oil previously mentioned was through Bangor at 3:30ish.

Dag! Looks like D-1 was busier than D-3!

Great report, Smitty, love the new thread, keep up the good work.
We'll be up to deer camp in Brownville the first of next month for bird hunting. Hope to get a few minutes to swing by the junction and check out the action.

I can see why they would want to do some ties, the main looks like an Industrial track...

doublestack wrote:Great report, Smitty, love the new thread, keep up the good work.
We'll be up to deer camp in Brownville the first of next month for bird hunting. Hope to get a few minutes to swing by the junction and check out the action.

From what I've seen, Brownville will be most busy early on, 7-8A and later in the day, Job 2 from Montreal gets in between 2-4pm, and they don't stick around when they get in. Power gets right to Derby for service. There is a local from Brownville to Millinocket or vice-versa mid-morning, but I didn't have the time, and my scanner was acting up today. If you can set aside a few hours though, you should be pretty successful there. NBSR is in in the morning mostly.

About 4:30 the 312 and 3005 were working the north side of Waterville. They had among others 4 more gons of new ties. South side switcher was 373, 340. They finished building WAPO, I think, and went off duty at about 5:30 when I left. They pulled a cut of 10 or so empty ballast hoppers out and put them in the train. 1 set of oil power was visible down towards the roundhouse. All I could see was a south facing BNSF unit from public property.
Lastly, while I was there a highrailer, the lowboy semi and the crane I saw at keag yeserday pulled into the yard. They also had a semi come in and add more stone to the crushed rock pile theyve got going and asemi left after delivering diesel.

Looks like they're getting serious with the tie replacement but still a lot of old, light rail North of Bangor.

I'd imagine thats in the plan. Don't know for sure, but a lot of the rail up there isn't just old/lite but of rather poor quality. Rock and ties are 2/3 of the track equation, seems odd they would overlook the third part...

A couple from today, snagged before the camera died. --> http://kevin_smith.rrpicturearchives.net/archiveThumbs.aspx?id=83627 <-- no publicly accessible places to shoot any of the oil power, but as I mentioned at one set was still there, I'd imagine destined to pull a WAPO tonight or tomorrow...

Are the MOW stone gons being loaded in North Anson from the company pit in Embed or is the stone trucked out and loaded at a centralized spot like Waterville or NMJ? Would make for some nice long Madison locals with all the stone they will be using.

I wonder what they're unloading with that Sacket conveyor?

They are trucking stone into Waterville. They had a huge pile there earlier but i havent a clue what the ultimate intention for the stone is. Id guess its for the work up north?

KSmitty wrote:Id guess its for the work up north?

Hard to imagine it would be for anything else.

It's not as if PAR is suddenly going into the landscaping business!

It is however definitely a sign of MAJOR work.

Tie replacement is one thing.

Ballasting, lining and surfacing is something else entirely.

I won't be in the least bit surprised if we see a rail train come through.

gokeefe wrote:

KSmitty wrote:Id guess its for the work up north?

Hard to imagine it would be for anything else.

It's not as if PAR is suddenly going into the landscaping business!

Is it possible that maybe the pile of stone is just for the Waterville yard itself? Remember, last week several empty box cars left the yard heading south perhaps to free up more space there.
gokeefe did mention in his other post that maybe Waterville could be making room for an intermodel terminal or a staging area for the oil extras. Could this be the stone for a track upgrade?
It doesn't make sense to truck in the stone and unload it on the ground then turn around and reload it for transport to a area close to 100 miles away. Ever the short section of rebuild track on the lower road had ballast come in by rail in hopper cars. Just a thought.

Thats a good point. Without rails to the pit where they dig this stuff up, is it possible Waterville provides a better spot to load than N. Anson? The Madison branch is in deplorable shape. Maybe they figure its easier to lug the stuff into Waterville than try to add cars of stone to the MD-1 job?