by necr3849
Altogether, 2011 ended up being a highly successful year with trains on the MMA Searsport branch. Personally getting over 30 #211s on the camera during the year was a milestone I never thought I'd make when 2010 ended. Sure the power variety kind of dried up by November, but a train is a train down here along the shoreline. That's especially true when it's NOT one that goes 10mph on its mainline.
2011 ended rather ominously, with the Millinocket-Searsport boxcar traffic having been really short lived. The high-cubes have been stored in Hermon for weeks now. When you have to factor weather into the equation for moving product from boxcar to ship due to no direct transfer, its's just a matter of time before it goes belly-up I guess.
New Years Day had somewhat of a milestone itself when MMA ran a 48-car Searsport job that Sunday. That's huge compared to any others I had seen since they went to the Saturday runs. Unfortunately, last week had me talking with someone that said it looks like management is thinking of putting the axe to the Saturday runs fairly soon and putting the Tuesday and Thursday runs back to nights. I'm thinking the customers down here might have something to say about that since every one other than the seasonal Lane sidings takes cars each Saturday.
Also, a second-shift switcher is going to be put at Northern Maine Junction. Not sure how many days a week that will be, but I'd assume whoever runs that will also be doing the alternating Brownville/Searsport day runs that are happening now and are supposed to go nocturnal. If all this becomes reality, I'll REALLY be glad I got out on the line as many times as I did in 2011!
2011 ended rather ominously, with the Millinocket-Searsport boxcar traffic having been really short lived. The high-cubes have been stored in Hermon for weeks now. When you have to factor weather into the equation for moving product from boxcar to ship due to no direct transfer, its's just a matter of time before it goes belly-up I guess.
New Years Day had somewhat of a milestone itself when MMA ran a 48-car Searsport job that Sunday. That's huge compared to any others I had seen since they went to the Saturday runs. Unfortunately, last week had me talking with someone that said it looks like management is thinking of putting the axe to the Saturday runs fairly soon and putting the Tuesday and Thursday runs back to nights. I'm thinking the customers down here might have something to say about that since every one other than the seasonal Lane sidings takes cars each Saturday.
Also, a second-shift switcher is going to be put at Northern Maine Junction. Not sure how many days a week that will be, but I'd assume whoever runs that will also be doing the alternating Brownville/Searsport day runs that are happening now and are supposed to go nocturnal. If all this becomes reality, I'll REALLY be glad I got out on the line as many times as I did in 2011!