New London

I was in New London on Saturday 5 NOV.

I watched a southbound NECR train at about 10:15 on the NECR tracks on the west side of the Thames. It had two NECR locomotives, a P& W, and one colored like P&W. A significant portion of the freight was metal bars on either flatcars or gondolas.

I saw the NECRs and the red and black locomotive heading north again at about 1:00.

At about 3:00 I saw a P&W train heading north on the P&W tracks on the East side of the river. It looked like a lot of the cars with steel bars were on that train.

Struck me as a little odd since if the bars were destined for somewhere on the P&W line it would seem like they could interchange at Worchester.

Any thoughts?

The steel coming down on the NECR, if I'm not mistaken, originates in Canada, and is interchanged from the CN to NECR at the VT/Canada border. Any steel that P&W is handling between Worcester and Groton comes off of CSX. Why add another carrier, having NECR hand it off to CSX in Palmer, then CSX short haul it to Worcester? Just adds another hand in the cookie jar, so to speak...

As for the locomotives you observed, NECR is leasing P&W GP40-3 #3001. The other P&W colored locomotive is an ex-CN GP40-2W widecab, now owned by RMPX (Rail Management leasing, I think).

-Tom

One more thing on the steel - it's destined for points west of Groton and up around Middletown, so NR-2 has to hand it off to NH-1 in Old Saybrook. Wouldn't make sense diverting it to Worcester, even if the money (and time) didn't matter.

And like David says - why involve CSX when you don't have to? Knowing them, the NECR would drop the cars in Palmer, they'd go out to Selkirk, down to Florida, back up to Selkirk, over to Ohio, back to Selkirk, and then maybe head towards Worcester...

-Tom

P&W 3001 was handed back to P&W On the 5th. The lease was up

The CN units are RMPX 9428 and 9431


Brian
Conductor NECR

bshrdr wrote:And like David says - why involve CSX when you don't have to? Knowing them, the NECR would drop the cars in Palmer, they'd go out to Selkirk, down to Florida, back up to Selkirk, over to Ohio, back to Selkirk, and then maybe head towards Worcester...

-Tom

Yes, the cars would go from Palmer to West Springfield on a local (B741). Then head west to Selkirk, then east to the P&W on Q436, since B741 (or any other local for that matter), doesn't head east of Worcester. Also, none of the road jobs pick-up Worcester cars in Springfield.

The interchange between the P&W and the NECR is doing well. The washout problems on the NECR caused some major back ups that are just now being relieved but I'm told the interchange numbers are quite good. Word persists that the old New Haven line into Willimantic will be reactivated by the P&W to handle additional interchange. Given the current status of CSX and Guilford, I'm hoping that NECR's access to NS via the Green Mountain and its direct access to CN will give the P&W some alternatives for routing.

SnoozerZ49 wrote:Word persists that the old New Haven line into Willimantic will be reactivated by the P&W to handle additional interchange.

Yep, work is supposed to start sometime in 2006, with it going "live" somewhere in the fall or winter of 2006. From what I've heard, it's going to be mostly, if not all, autoracks that will be interchanged at Willi. Of course, the Bellows Falls tunnel plays a part in this also - the roadbed needs to be lowered to accomodate the racks.

-Tom

I work on the D&H. We interchange many cars routed DH Whitehall -CLP/VTR/GMRC to Bellows Falls, NECR New London, to P&W.