CSX Boston and Albany Line

Both Q436 and Q424 are often more than half made up of returning C&D cars. IRAP funded expansions for MSW by rail at existing C&D shippers at Wilbraham and Leominster could be just the tip of the iceberg as the trend right now is to move as much waste as possible by rail out of New England. This is a direct result of more and more local landfills closing with disposal rates at those that remain continuing to go up.

This is an off-the-wall question regarding the Charlton Depot section of the line. My information may be incorrect and if so, please let me know...as I know it, Auto Racks are brought all the way east to Worcester before being brought back to East Brookfield for unloading on a local. Wouldn't it save a fair amount of time and money to have sidings installed where all the open space is around the old depot? This would have the train unload all the Auto Racks in Charlton before getting to Worcester then continue on with any remnants of the train into Worcester, thus a much smaller train and using less fuel heading into Worcester and coming from Worcester "light" to pick them up and bring them down to East Brookfield). Using google maps I've noticed what appear to be small "yards" of only 2 or 3 sidings on railroads around Massachusetts and wondered if this could be done in Charlton.

Last I knew, and I doubt it has changed, the autoracks that are un/loaded in E. Brookfield at milepost 63.1 do not move east to Worcester, but, instead the trains originate and terminate right there utilizing the signalled siding between CP-64 in East Brookfield (milepost 64) and CP-60 in South Spencer (milepost 60.3). Perhaps you've heard about some of the racks that move to E. Brookfield now riding Q424 into West Springfield to then be brought out to E. Brookfield with a local.

Don't think any racks come east of the Brookfield facility anymore unless it stuff going to
into storage at the old CP Yard in Framingham. And yes the local that works east from
W. Springfield to Palmer has been taking some racks to E. Brookfield now and then. Seen
pics on Facebook.

Thank you for the info guys, thought it would be wasteful to have them come all the way east and then head back west.

Another off-the-wall question regarding the Charlton Depot area, this one is regarding what appears to be a pier on the south side of the tracks. Looking at pictures of the stone station that was built in 1892 there looks to be a "freight?" house also on the south side and west of the station. In the pictures that I have there appears to be a set of tracks that ran on the back side of the freight house and up on posts, albeit short ones, and the ones I've seen there appear to be at least 10' off the ground. I can't make out any old roads or trails from underneath to indicate it may have been perhaps a coal dump of some type if there ever was such a thing. Does anyone know where these piered tracks ended or were used for?

Yes, those remnant piers were for a coal unloading stub-ended trestle and appears to have belonged to a private business and not the railroad. Though it's overgrown now, at one time you could see all the remnant coal on the ground under the trestle and a dirt road leading out of the area.

Thx QB for the info. Looks like it used to be a rather important location back in the day.

My pleasure, MrB. Besides being an important commercial center for the surrounding area it also was an important point for the railroad at the top of the grades out of East Brookfield and Worcester. If you're interested, check out the track charts most generously provided by the website owner at http://www.zekedev.com/sites/boston_line/index.cfm to see what Charlton Depot once was.

Just checked out the Charlton Twitter feed and apparently there was a major screw-up in dispatching on the line yesterday. The Amtrak train heading west out of Worcester around 2PM got held up by CSX trains parked on both tracks heading east and stopped at the signals. They had to get a crew out of Palmer it stated to pull one of the trains back to provide access for Amtrak to continue. Somebody screwed up big time.

MrB wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 9:58 am Just checked out the Charlton Twitter feed and apparently there was a major screw-up in dispatching on the line yesterday. The Amtrak train heading west out of Worcester around 2PM got held up by CSX trains parked on both tracks heading east and stopped at the signals. They had to get a crew out of Palmer it stated to pull one of the trains back to provide access for Amtrak to continue. Somebody screwed up big time.

There are photos here: https://twitter.com/Dan_H_Photo/status/ ... 7942459394.
This definitely seems like the sort of thing that just should never happen.

So how late was the LSL this time? Must have really screwed the schedule up.

The B&A was bollixed up since the night before with trains ending up ~6 hours late (apparently with consequential crews outlawing). Very small probability that this was an individual's mistake, certainly not unsafe, and, with a good chance it was planned given the circumstances (unseen by a photograph and misunderstood on Twitter).

bostontrainguy wrote: ↑Thu Dec 31, 2020 5:04 pm So how late was the LSL this time? Must have really screwed the schedule up.

Amtrak's twitter feed put it at 1:45hr late when it got back on the move. The next morning 49/449 was off by 1:08hr as it was arriving in Chicago.

Any idea what caused the B&A to get so bogged down?