MARC Equipment Use

Hi All,

I am on my annual vacation from Ireland this day next week and will be in the Dorsey area on Wednesday afternoon through to Thursday, railfanning the Corridor at Seabrook and Halethorpe. I know this question has been asked before but I want to make sure I have up to date info. When are the best times to get the most variety of the equipment I could hope to see? Some MP36s and AEM7s would be nice but not sure of their status at the moment, in relation to the Penn Line.
I'm trying to use my time efficiently here which is why I'm being so specific - it would be nice to know what trains I should be looking out for and know when to call it a day, both in the early morning and evening time.

Thanks!

Thomas
Belfast, Northern Ireland

If you read through the first couple posts on this thread:

http://railroad.net/forums/viewtopic.php?f=64&t=73010

you can find out a decent amount of info on what runs when.

Good luck in your railfanning endeavors!

Davis

I went after some pictures of the "Cake Boss" Acela set a few weeks ago - this was the take in 30 minutes from about 6:20 - 6:50PM in Odenton:

First out of the chute was a northbound Acela:




Followed closely by a regional (never noticed an AEM-7 with mismatched number plates like this one):




Then, another regional in the opposite direction:



Rounding out the northbound traffic was a MARC local, being pulled by a pair of MP-36's:




Before he could get out of the station, 97 came flying in from the north:



Finally, my patience rewarded, here comes the Cake Boss.




The End!




More pictures in the set at flickr.

That was back when they were still doing the reverse tracking for the rail tie replacement. Fortunately they've gone back to the normal tracks now.

Is MARC pairing its Meeps in case one of them fails or are they trying to get better performance on some of their longer trains? With both new and old locomotives on the property they might be taking advantage of the surplus.

I think that it's a combination of both. The express trains are still losing time because of the 90 MPH limit on the MPs and like you alluded to this is something of a unique situtaion with the old and the new on the property. I'm afraid that next summer we're in for it even worse, since the GPs will be gone by then.