Hello,
My daughter and I recently visited St. Stephen, New Brunswick and fortuitously caught the "St. Stephen Turn" (no idea what the symbol is) switching the local industries in Milltown and St. Stephen on their way back north from the Maine side of the St. Croix River. The train consisted of caboose 434919, 13 cars of mixed freight, and GP38-3 917. On the day that we saw them, they had 5 boxcars, 3 covered hoppers, and 4 empty log flats. The caboose is used for the long shove between the junction in St. Stephen and the other one across the river in Calais.
Here's a photo of the train shoving north through the Arauco plant:
http://fritz.rrpicturearchives.net/show ... id=5179853
To the left of the train, you can see a boxcar on the lead to the loading shed. They pulled one load heading back north. Unfortunately, the particleboard half of the Arauco plant is slated to shut down by the end of 2019 (the flakeboard half will remain in production).
From what I overhead, it sounds like the St. Stephen run used to be five days per week but right now, due to a downturn in traffic, is only running three days per week (MWF). The crew reports on duty in McAdam at 0500, departs after about two hours for paperwork and putting their train together, and takes about 3 hours to get to St. Stephen (track speed is 10 MPH). They then work down into Maine and then back to St. Stephen, where they switch the local industries and are often recrewed.
Here's a few photos while waiting the recrew:
http://fritz.rrpicturearchives.net/show ... id=5182095
http://fritz.rrpicturearchives.net/show ... id=5182096
http://fritz.rrpicturearchives.net/show ... id=5182097
http://fritz.rrpicturearchives.net/show ... id=5182099
They serve two industries in Woodland (Woodland Pulp and Tissue and another at the north end of the line), three in Milltown (Arauco and two others), and one in St. Stephen (Ganong Brothers). As far as I could tell, there are no other industries along the line south of McAdam.
If anyone knows the symbol, that would be great to learn, and I am also curious if this turn job works the mill at Woodland or if they have another job that works that (perhaps crewed by Eastern Maine Railway).
Best,
Fritz