What's with Watertown?

So I COULD have seen it!! NUTS! Instead I was sweating while helping to clean out my boyfriend's flooded '74 AMX...

I was in the Boston Area today, so i figured I would take a ride out to Watertown (where i lived for 16 years) to see Newlyweds and the Watertown Branch. I ended getting off of a Rt 71 bus at the corner of Mt Auburn and Grove St's, then walked up Grove St until i walked over the railroad bridge, then rook a immediate left down behind a business's road which lead me to Newlywds truck/rail facility. When I was their i noticed two trucks, off loading or loading stuff, parked over the spur which leads into the building. I then walked down the spur, until where it joins up with the main track.. i then walked that all the way down the line until it crosses over Cottage Street. Not as bad in the sections i saw, but i know it's not close to go anywhere on that branch. I have some smaller pictures from my cell phone, not sure if i can get them on here though.

AY-1 serviced Newlywed Foods today. Power was MEC 321 and BM 335
with 5 loads. Took back 2 empties.

D

Seems Thursdays are the day they work that job

GP40MC1118 wrote:AY-1 serviced Newlywed Foods today. Power was MEC 321 and BM 335
with 5 loads. Took back 2 empties.

D

And they probably spent the whole day doing it too, getting from Ayer to West Cambridge, getting on and off the branch, and getting back to Ayer in between commuter trains. That crew could have handled the 5 loads and 2 empties in much less time if Newlyweds was located in Ayer, which is why over the years Guilford has encouraged it's existing customers to relocate there(Cantina Spagna and Southern Container, for example).

I was on the 4:50 Fitchburg train today, and noticed two white Norfolk Southern Box cars, and three white covered hoppers at the start of the Watertown Branch. No sign of any PanAm engines, though.

Any ideas as to why the box cars might have been there? I've been told that Newlyweds only recieves covered hoppers. Would PanAm ever use the track for storage?

arsenall79 wrote:I was on the 4:50 Fitchburg train today, and noticed two white Norfolk Southern Box cars, and three white covered hoppers at the start of the Watertown Branch. No sign of any PanAm engines, though.

Any ideas as to why the box cars might have been there? I've been told that Newlyweds only recieves covered hoppers. Would PanAm ever use the track for storage?

That's odd -- I don't think anyone else out there in West Cambridge has recieved anything in a while, as a combination of GRS and real estate prices drove everyone who recieved rail service out of the industrial park.

I was down near Fresh Pond about that time yesterday and didn't see any sign of them running the branch.

That is interesting. It is depressing seeing the spurs in West Cambridge all empty. And it is annoying because when I first started railfanning, they WERE used! Oh well...

Perhaps they were heading into Boston for some reason, but had to be cut off due to defects? Even more shocking... maybe they were left there for pickup to be taken out to Ayer??

octr202 wrote:I was down near Fresh Pond about that time yesterday and didn't see any sign of them running the branch.

I noticed that about the branch, too. I drove back that way later in the evening (around 6:30), and it looked like the tracks that cross Rts 2 & 3 between the rotaries hadn't seen any recent activity. (I didn't check to see if the cars were still at the begining of the branch, though).

NellsChoo wrote:Perhaps they were heading into Boston for some reason, but had to be cut off due to defects? Even more shocking... maybe they were left there for pickup to be taken out to Ayer??

As shocking as that would be, that's the only explaination I can think of.

Those might not have been boxcars at all. Probably Airslides - covered
hoppers that could be easily mistaken for a boxcar. The NS boxcar fleet
is all boxcar red or mineral brown. No white ones at all. There covered
hopers are light gray or white...

Dave

I saw the five freight cars at the beginning of the Watertown branch from the morning and late afternoon Fitchburg Route trains I rode yesterday (Wednesday, September 20); they were indeed all covered hopper cars: three two-bay Airslides and two Center Flow types, probably pressure-differential. At least two of the Airslides had NS heralds.

Newlywed Foods has separate unloading facilities for the Airslides and the pressure-differential cars. I know that because a friend of mine (and fellow commuter) did the engineering for their installation. Train crews have to make sure they spot the proper kinds of cars in the proper places.

GP40MC1118 wrote:Those might not have been boxcars at all. Probably Airslides - covered
hoppers that could be easily mistaken for a boxcar. The NS boxcar fleet
is all boxcar red or mineral brown. No white ones at all. There covered
hopers are light gray or white...

Dave

Then that is probably what they were. What's the difference between those and the normal covered hoppers?

Comming in on a Lowell MBTA CR Train the other day and traveling past BET and the yard trackage arround Somerville, I noticed BO-1 w a string of NS Hoppers, could those be going to Watertown? I'll have to see if i can check it closer tommorow, my internship is right in that area, so we'll see if i can sneak a peak or picture or something.

This morning an MBTA dispatcher was talking to "Maine Central extra..." I was on the way to work, but my boyfriend was able to look around. Nothing in the area! I wonder what that was, unless Guilford was working Veryfine...

That's MBCR dispatcher, not MBTA!

Anyway, the only thing BO-1 did today was go to Lawrence with a
lite engine and come back to Boston with 6 cars. Got back in around
2PM.

Dave