Freight through Winchester MA station?

Hi all :D

Can anyone tell me if freight ever passes the Winchester MA MBTA station? I don't know a whole lot about that area rail-wise. Would it be worth sitting at the station some Sunday with a camera?

Usually LOSA (Freight), BODO & DOBO (Gravel trains) travel this line into Boston. I'm still attempting to establish if one of these trains (BODO & DOBO) are using the line thru Reading. These trains run Monday Thru Friday @ the very least.... usually after 10PM.

After 10? Nuts... Is this the route that Guilford takes to get into Boston? Do any other railroads use it, like CSX? Again, I don't know this line at all. I'm more used to the Fitchburg.

As far as I know...... the three trains I mentioned are the only ones that use this line. BODO might travel that line back to Dover NH around 3-5 AM. Guilford runs east/west freight thru Andover on the Western thru Lowell Junction & into the Lowell MA area.

Not much through Winchester. You are better off heading further north to Andover or Haverhill. The southbound maineline freights head west at the lowell junction and do not continue south through the Winchester area

As stated in another post, LOSA/SALO and DOBO/BODO are the ONLY
freights (except a rare extra) to pass through Winchester on the T's
Lowell mainline.

LOSA/SALO - On duty 7PM at Lowell and runs via Wamesit/Lowell Jct to
Lawrence to get its train. Runs to Boston from Lawrence via the Wildcat
Branch and the Lowell main. Switches all customers between Wilmington
and Winchester usually on its southbound trip. Rarely, if ever, goes to
Salem. SALO goes straight to Lowell (unless otherwise redirected) right
up the T's mainline just prior to the AM rush hour parade. Runs Monday
through Friday and occasionally on Sunday.

DOBO/BODO - On duty 7PM Dover and comes directly to Boston via the
Wildcat Branch and Lowell mainline. On RARE occasions, BODO will run
out the Reading/Haverhill mainline, but this is not the desired way to go
home due to the slowness of the Western Route mainline and noise issues.
DOBO will only come down the Reading line if forced to. Again, the
aforementioned issues apply as they do for BODO. HOWEVER, it is NO
joy handling a loaded sand/gravel train down into the tunnel at Wellington,
then up over the Mystic River and down again to Reading Jct in
Somerville.

CSX does not run or have rights or reasons to run north of Somerville.

FYI - LO-1 runs Monday through Firday between Lowell and Billerica
Shop in daylight. Usually heads back to Lowell after 2-3PM.

Dave

HOWEVER, it is NO
joy handling a loaded sand/gravel train down into the tunnel at Wellington,
then up over the Mystic River and down again to Reading Jct in
Somerville.

"Slinky, slinky, everybody loves a slinky" except an engineer. LOL

:D

Dave, thats probably still not as hard as a loaded auto rack on the B&A. j/k

Is this info still up to date? I live in the woburn area and it would be very cool to catch a freight train or two. These trains seem to travel the same line at the same time. Do they go down virtual back to back? And, does this mean there is a big ~2 hour gap in the MTBA commuter rail schedule?

The running times are basically the same, but there has been a drop-off on the service levels.

DOBO/BODO is now Monday through Thursday.
LOSA/SALO was last known to be Monday-Friday, but for the last month or so is been more "as-needed"! Don't know if this is a crew issue or not.

BO-1 will occasionally run to Lawrence and return in place of a cancelled LOSA if traffic warrants it. They did it once this week, leaving Somerville around 1030AM with 22-24 cars. Only came back with 2 cars.

Dave

GP40MC1118 wrote:The running times are basically the same, but there has been a drop-off on the service levels.

DOBO/BODO is now Monday through Thursday.
LOSA/SALO was last known to be Monday-Friday, but for the last month or so is been more "as-needed"! Don't know if this is a crew issue or not.

BO-1 will occasionally run to Lawrence and return in place of a cancelled LOSA if traffic warrants it. They did it once this week, leaving Somerville around 1030AM with 22-24 cars. Only came back with 2 cars.

Dave

Crew issues eh? Well if they are short, where do I sign up?

l008com wrote:Crew issues eh? Well if they are short, where do I sign up?

Guilford's Job Opportunities. Suprised to see that they are not looking for conductors right now. They used to be looking for conductors all the time, just not in this area.

CSX Conductor wrote:

l008com wrote:Crew issues eh? Well if they are short, where do I sign up?

Guilford's Job Opportunities. Suprised to see that they are not looking for conductors right now. They used to be looking for conductors all the time, just not in this area.

Wow they are big on that 'work ethic' thing, guess I don't qualify.

Yeah, slackers need not apply. Many don't realize how much work we actually do, although some people don't make good conductors and make their own jobs much harder than it has to be.

CSX Conductor wrote:Yeah, slackers need not apply. Many don't realize how much work we actually do, although some people don't make good conductors and make their own jobs much harder than it has to be.

I don't even want to BE a conductor, I just wanna "help out" once in a while, when I have the time. Like most of us train wierdo's, i'd totally do it for free! It would be so cool!!