New Hampshire Northcoast Railroad (NHN) Discussion

Just passed under the Harvard St bridge in Somerville at about 3:15am or so. Heard a horn and immediately came to a stop. Low and behold, it was BODO with about 30 cars.

Service seems to be frequent as of late. Big rush on construction projects needing concrete before winter sets in?

Re:503.

bk77 wrote: I recall seeing several photos of it trailing on sand trains where the caption read it would be cut out of the consist before reaching Pan Am trackage where it was banned to run (never knew the reason why). Until recently I haven't seen any pics/videos of it at all in Pan Am territory. So considering that step ahead for the old girl I'm now wondering if a fresh coat of paint will be next...

Let's hope the yellow "Burlington Northern" stripes come back! ....I know I'm a broken record.

Caught DOBO/BODO in Boston. Hung around a few minutes for BODO's roughly 3:00am departure. I thought they were hauling out to CPF FX or Reading Jct to clear BS&G and make a shove back to Tower A and haul out on the New Hampshire Main. Or maybe just clear FX, run around, then haul out the New Hampshire Main via the Willey. That's what they usually do, I take it, right? But not tonight! They were really hauling out of there a good speed, up the Western Route.

Managed to beat them to Reading. Signals weren't even in for them yet, so I thought maybe they beat me and had already passed. On the way back south, I caught BODO crawling into Wakefield Station before throttling up. Was nice to see a freight coming through Wakefield, and interesting to see a somewhat rare move.

Have to also say it seemed very long, too. What is the typical length? The one I happened to stumble on last week was about 30 cars that I counted. This one seemed like 50 but I hadn't tried counting.

Leaving Dover this AM, NHN has 38 empties. They will also be taking 5 LPG loads to Rochester.

Some NHN locomotive photo history.

Conrail 7065 and 7083, which would become NHN 1756 and 1757
at the P&W shop in Worcester MA on 6/5/85. The P&W would
paint the two locomotives into the NHN green and yellow scheme.
Photo from Ron Chouinard collection by Phillip Paradis.
http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/showPi ... ?id=373695" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 1756 would be sold to GRS/PAR. Reportedly, GRS/PAR considered
converting the 1756 into slug, but ultimately parted it out and scrapped
the leftovers.

Photo here of the 7083 taken in Gardner after its painting on 5/15/86
still carrying the CR number and awaiting shipment to the NHN and
renumbering to 1757. Photo by Bruce MacDonald.
http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... ate&page=1" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

The 1757 is now owned by the 470 Railroad Club and resides at the Conway Scenic RR.
There is a plan to use the 1757 as a parts doner to get the B&M 4268 operational. That
is a major project, to say the least. IMO, whether it ever happens remains to be seen.

Video by Eric Reuter:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QqnXvGosATY" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

…cool, really cool!!!

That's cool. Does NHN own a snow plow?

What time does the NHN normally leave Ossipee, and how frequently are they running in the winter?

The NHN does not own a plow. A few winters ago, they borrowed a pair of PAR plows for a one time plowing.

NHN had a big train going north on Monday (3/23). 20 loads of LPG and 24 empty gravel hoppers.

BIG DOBO tonight 4/7 3825-503-3823 28 loads for Boston...

Given the depletion of sand and salt stocks from this winter I would not be surprised to see NHN running very heavy sand traffic all summer long.

gokeefe wrote:Given the depletion of sand and salt stocks from this winter I would not be surprised to see NHN running very heavy sand traffic all summer long.

I very much doubt it. Vast majority of the road salt in New England, Tri-state area, and Great Lakes/upstate NY snowbelt gets barged in. One single site on the Chelsea River just inside of Boston Harbor supplies a quarter of the road salt for the entire state of Massachusetts and gets re-stocking deliveries mid-winter. Most of Chelsea's salt comes from South America. Portsmouth also has a gigantic salt pile at the barge docks on Market St. that feeds a goodly amount of New Hampshire's supply. Rhode Island gets nearly all of theirs at Port of Providence. Connecticut has several places up and down the Sound where it offloads. Not sure about Maine...checking Google I can't see any salt piles around Portland, but Searsport has a pretty good-sized dockside pile. In the cases of Searsport, Portsmouth, and Providence there is direct rail access to the piles for onloading (which generally isn't done because there's little need for a rail middleman when trucks are always the last mile). But neither rail as a mode nor the local sand producers are the least bit economical for restocking with the kind of capacity these salt ships provide, and can provide (albeit at higher price point) for an in-season emergency re-stocking.


Also, most road treatment these days is way heavier on the salt than it is the sand. I can't speak for Maine, Vermont, or far inland NH...but sand has largely disappeared from the road treatment mix in the last 15 years as the salt mixes have gotten way more efficient. It actually struck me how much things had changed when I was driving in Southington, CT a few weekends ago several hours before a 3-inch snowfall and was caught a short distance behind a town DPW truck that was dumping sand because the town had completely exhausted its salt supply. I was like..."Wow, real honest-to-god brown sand. That's a sight I haven't seen in a good 12-15 years." The New England quarries are big on sand but not on the salt, so they have nowhere near the mixing scale of these overseas salt quarries that can ship finished product by boat. If it still figures prominently in the mix anywhere in New England it would have to be pretty far inland of these year-round ports, and generally far enough out in the sticks for the meager local scale to float the needs. New England sand is construction sand. They don't shape-shift seasonally to road treatment because their product doesn't factor nearly as much as it used to in road treatments.

F-line to Dudley via Park wrote:One single site on the Chelsea River just inside of Boston Harbor supplies a quarter of the road salt for the entire state of Massachusetts

Wow. If that is true, then the salt pile that they build every summer/autumn at Moran Terminal in Charlestown must cover 50% of the state's needs. I'm pretty sure it dwarfs the Chelsea pile. When I was taking the 426 every day over the Tobin, it was fascinating to watch the large dump trucks traverse the pile like a line of ants.

Which also makes me think of another point.... This salt must then be trucked to different dispersion points all across the state... Seems to me a good opportunity for a few CSX specials in the autumn and winter. Load up some hoppers, run it west, drop the rear in Worcester, and bring the rest to Springfield. Seems more efficient way to haul such large quantities of salt. Not really time sensitive that early in the season, either.