Lowell Line - Winchester, Woburn, Wilmington Spottings

MEC 5972 showing off it's coal rolling skills passing West Medford near the lake. 5966 appears to be dead.
BO-1 with 21 loads - 16 scrap, 4 cement and 1 reefer

https://youtu.be/oqZdVRSpwC8

Heard a rumor recently that BO-1 is going to be abolished and that freight to Boston will be a night-only deal soon (was not told a specific date). Can anyone here corroborate this statement?

Sadly I got no pictures or video, but I saw an interesting sight today. At the sight of the old New Boston Rd bridge in Woburn, I saw an Amtrak downeaster locomotive skipping down with one of the T's power washer trains in tow. I was in a poorly lit area and assumed it was just another commuter rail train so I didn't film it. Doh!

Add me to the unusual sightings but no pictures club. At about 12:54pm, I was enjoying lunch with friends at the Black Horse in Winchester and heard a soutbound train approaching. I was expected an inbound CR, but what I got was the MBTA caboose sandwiched between two locomotives in a push-pull configuration.

FatNoah wrote:Add me to the unusual sightings but no pictures club. At about 12:54pm, I was enjoying lunch with friends at the Black Horse in Winchester and heard a soutbound train approaching. I was expected an inbound CR, but what I got was the MBTA caboose sandwiched between two locomotives in a push-pull configuration.

That was a returning work train. There was another today, but this time the empties came back. I assume for the ATC work on the currently closed Western route.
As an aside, today with the WR shutdown, the Lowell line south of the Wildcat probably passed a 50 year peak in daily train numbers - close to 100 with all the CR/Downeaster plus deadheads, 2 freight round trips (BO-1 ran today) and the work train.

Goddraug wrote: ↑Thu Oct 12, 2023 4:44 pm Heard a rumor recently that BO-1 is going to be abolished and that freight to Boston will be a night-only deal soon (was not told a specific date). Can anyone here corroborate this statement?

Really? Until the end of August, when Rousselot shut down, pretty much all freight to Boston was at night. BO-1 was mostly confined to Everett and Salem during the day, and LA-2 would come and switch out at night, usually after BODO. Before the takeover there was also BO-2 at night that would run up to Lowell. Very occasionally BO-1 would make a round trip north during the day.

Now there is usually just one daytime working usually 3 times a week, reporting as BO-1, but it leaves from and returns to Lawrence. Today it ran in past West Medford around 1, and returned around 6, taking about 17-18 cars in each direction. I believe some days it exchanges boxcars at Tighe on the way in. BODO of course remains, usually passing around 10:30-11pm, but increasingly it seems to run on just TuWeTh. Given how much busier it is right now, particularly on the Wildcat with the WR diversion, it would seem odd that the movements would return to nighttime, if daytime is working out ok now.

For about 2 weeks now the Lawrence - Everett local has returned to a nighttime schedule, running Sunday to Thursday. Inbound is often just in front of DOBO passing West Medford around 11pm. Outbound early morning. Doesn't always run.
Don't know if this is because of the weekday single line working while Winchester station is being rebuilt (meaning 3 DE workings are going on the Western route), or is going to be a permanent feature.

Cool. Sadly for me I don't get out much in the winter to watch/film them. Hopefully they're still running on the lowell line once the weather starts to warm up!

Fiber optic train currently sitting in the hole at at Anderson. Engines facing north.

What is a fiber optic train?

I caught the Fiber train going through Waltham last summer. When it’s laying the fiber it crawls along extremely slowly. (Actually I don’t think it lays fiber at all, I think it lays tubes the fiber will later be pulled through.). It uses basically a vertical knife blade to cut a slit 3 or 4 feet deep and unrolls spools of the tubes into the bottom of it before it closes up after the blade passes.

The power: Where the action is: Behind that car there were a couple cars with large spools.

So there is both fiber and railroad signal systems in the ballast. I bet it gets crowded down there eventually.

They will probably replace and retire the copper-based system with fiber. Fiber will be much more resilient than what is currently in place. Fiber is also faster and easier to maintain and upgraded with future changes in technology. They could also lease capacity to other users.