Pan Am Coal Trains

Are you calling me a lier?

Mt Tom is in MA right? The ratty non-NS hoppers I am talking about sit in Gardner MA, full of coal. Then they head the SAME WAY the NS coal train does, along the Fitchburg then up to NH.

Just because you have never seen it doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I guess you don't believe in photographic proof.

Anyway, all I asked is what is the difference between the two trains? Does Bow use more than one coal source?

JD

i'm not calling you a liar, i'm just saying that maybe the train just goes somewhere else. the picture doesn't prove where the train goes, only that the train exists. and i've lived right next to the line for 16 years and i've never seen that train go by. that's why i say it may exist but go somewhere else.

The P&W coal train travels the EXACT SAME ROUTE as the NS trains do. From Gardner through Fitchburg, through Ayer, Down the Stoney Brook to CPN1 where it travels the very same route up through Nashua, Merrimack, Manchester, etc. It returns to Gardner the very same way. There is not other way to get a Coal train to Bow. These are the nasty, worn out P&W hoppers with GCEX and similar reporting marks although on occasion, you will see NS cars mixed in. They also usually have Guilford power unless NS units are around.

This is not a guess, this is not an estimate, this is FACT. As i said in earlier post, i know of six of these trains going to Bow in the last 30 days. And that is just the ones i have seen. More then likeley there were more. And it's not something new either. This practice has been going on since at least last summer. As someone pointed out, just because you have not seen something does not mean it doesn't exist. You simply are not seeing everything that goes by.

last summer, there we go. that's why i haven't seen it, compared to 16 years of living next to the tracks, it is new.

I only know of them since last summer. That is not to say it has not been going on longer. Ill find out for sure and post it.

GRS with P&W hoppers is very common in Nashua. Often they go straight through without stopping. I have noticed that they have stopped parking idling trains in the residential areas such as Bridge St. in approx the last 2 yrs. That must of missed the local papers headlines.

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?photo ... y=Wintrain


This did not just start in the last year. There are several more pics of these GRS engines with the P&W hoppers in and around Nashua over the past 5 years posted on NERAIL Photo. I have not noticed a change in frequency in this time frame. CS

I'll go one better to say, not only have I heard about PW coal trains going to Bow, I have put them together in Gardner, and taken them as far as I can go in that direction on the Northern, lol.

Last night my boyfriend and I got to see what all the hubub is about. Up from Worcester via Harvard through Ayer was a coal train, with both NS and PW hoppers. Lots of GE power, including slugs, headed up to Chelmsford, then along the Merrimack on the way to Bow. There were almost no other railfans around! It was a cryin' shame that it was dark... so many cool photo ops...

This was our first glimpse of a train along that line. They move along faster than expected!

How do the NS hoppers even get to Worcester? Do they get mixed up at Bow and return in a heap?

JD

NellsChoo wrote:Last night my boyfriend and I got to see what all the hubub is about. Up from Worcester via Harvard through Ayer was a coal train, with both NS and PW hoppers. Lots of GE power, including slugs, headed up to Chelmsford, then along the Merrimack on the way to Bow. There were almost no other railfans around! It was a cryin' shame that it was dark... so many cool photo ops...

This was our first glimpse of a train along that line. They move along faster than expected!

How do the NS hoppers even get to Worcester? Do they get mixed up at Bow and return in a heap?

JD

It would most likely happen the in the coal marshaling yards out "west"....cars from on the Bow trains stay in a unit and wouldn't get mixed up until they returned to where they started...

I've heard in the past that the P&W has leased a group of cars from the NS for coal service. The NS cars in question would be these leased cars, not the ones brought in on the NS trains.

The empty P&W coal train, symbol BOPW, left Bow tonight around 7:30PM heading south to Ayer and Worcester. These trains have had pretty good turn-around time at Bow. GRS/PAR doing well on scheduling crews.

Dick

emd_16645 wrote:I've heard in the past that the P&W has leased a group of cars from the NS for coal service. The NS cars in question would be these leased cars, not the ones brought in on the NS trains.

That's true. the P&W did lease a number of NS hoppers. P&W has a large number of hoppers from many places on the property. It's easy to forget that the hoppers are actually being loaded at Prov Port off ships from either South America or Indonesia, not at mines out west. That's why P&W is moving the coal.

NellsChoo wrote: Lots of GE power, including slugs,

Those actually are not slugs, they are simply B Units. Which is nothing more then a locomotive with no cab or controls. It can only be controlled via MU to another locomotive. A Slug has no prime mover and gets all it's power from a modified locomotive called a "Mother".

The 5 engines you saw were all ex BN units. B39-8's (the units with cabs) and B30-7A(B) (Cabless units)