New ties, or siding in Brunswick on MERR.

Have noticed that the east end of the interchange.runaround track(by Stanwood St.) has quite a few "critters" and a couple of high rail boom trucks. Plus, from the official start of the State owned Rockland Branch(where Guilford tracks officially end) at the Church Road crossing. new ties have been put along the North side of ROW. Don't know if State is going to build another siding, the start of which would be to west of the current round around "west swtch", or if the main and existing track will be getting these new ties. Seems to be just in the old Brunswick "west yard area.

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No, nothing new being added. Just regular tie replacement on the siding. Also, quite a few ties have been replaced on the wye, and on the siding between the west switch of the wye and Stanwood Street. Eventually a new siding will be built for the Amtrak station between Union and Maine Streets, but that won't be this year.

My father in law told me that the lower road had a huge washout in the vacinity of Freeport. Check out this video.

http://www.wmtw.com/video/17144859/index.html

Desert road washed out, and I guess the same rains took out the Lower Road. How would this affect interchange with the MERR?

Brooks

There were several washouts in and around Freeport, but I heard that they were being fixed and the line was expected to be open this past Friday. PAR was expected to bring the 488 and the diner up yesterday. I'll be down there today and will take a look. Also, I hadn't heard of any washouts on the Lower Road.

The washouts have been repaired and PAR came up on Saturday with empty cement cars, flats of steel, perlite, the dining car and #488.

mwhite; thanks for Monday's update on the #488 etc.

Had a chance to check out the Brunswick area this AM, without the nagging wife, who "doesn't want to waste time lookin' at trains"
Was at the Montswaeg Flea Market, when what sounded like "too early for the passenger train" went by, around 8:30.
When I got back to Brunswick, M-420 #3573, running light, was pulling down to Stanwood St. on the #2 track, which was also occupied by several "critters" doing work on the tie replacements in that area.
Interesting, that while BOTH the #488(lead) AND #489, had brought down the train from Rockland, they were NOT running "push pull", but back to back on the head end. So wye was used to turn train.
Looked like the freight, once it picked up its consist, in the Stanwood St. "yard" would follow the passenger job east.
Quite a few ties/spikes being replaced in the Church Rd.-Spring St. area.

Bud