"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

I live at Morril's Corner (CPF 194) and I must have heard at least 4 separate trains cross by within the last hour. This seemingly never happens, is there something unusual going on today in particular? Perhaps a lot of runs in because of Labor Day? Radio traffic isn't particularly unusual.

E: 3 more crossings since I posted this (though I imagine Amtrak may have been at least one).

RUPO meeting 684 at Royal Jct is quite a bit earlier than they have been running
as they're typically At Danville Jct in late afternoon- after 1500. For the past several
months PORU has often been out of Rigby 1100-1300, hitting Danville Jct a couple
of hours later.

What days are RUPO/PORU running currently? And are WAPO/POWA daily and still mostly nocturnal?

Out running errands this afternoon I happened upon a meet between WAPO and
PORU at New Gloucester and here is a shot of PORU with 353-306-518 and 62 cars
leaving the siding at New Gloucester after the meet and another of WAPO with 7542-
7605_310-CSX6536 at Royal Junction. They came to a stop so didn't get a car count.
As to Oibu's questions about train times and days running I have no inside sources
of info and can only make assumptions based on observations- assumptions are
frequently wrong. POWA-WAPO usually run at night and seldom see them except when
WAPO runs late such as they did today. I have noticed the rails on the siding at Leeds Jct
are often shiny so I have wondered if POWA-WAPO meet there during the night as I can
think of nothing else that would use the siding. PORU-RUPO go from the mainline to
the branch or vice versa and seldom do any work there. From observations I have
assumed (Beware-there's that word again) that PORU runs to Rumford then turns back
west to Rileys or Livermore Falls where their time runs out and they take rest. When
rested they complete the trip back to Portland. Have been in Rumford on evenings that
PORU has run and not seen them laying over there. Have observed then tied down on
the mainline at Livermore Falls a number of times (not recently though) and the yard at
Rileys is mostly out of sight so can't confirm a layover there. This jibes with repeated
observations of PORU leaving Rigby mid-day, arriving Rileys late afternoon, with RUPO
the next day leaving Rileys early afternoon and arriving in Danville Jct late afternoon. If
the trains ran seven days a week then predictably PORU on Mon-Wed_Fri would yield
RUPO on Tue-Thur-Sat or vice versa but it doesnt always work that way. From observations
I saw RUPO in Leeds on Wed 14 Sept, PORU in Rumford on 21 Sept and PORU today 28 Sept
at New Gloucester. A skip day for the train makes trying to predict future runs futile and
lately some days they are leaving Rigby quite early, say 4-6AM. Happy railfanning.

From observations I have assumed (Beware-there's that word again) that PORU runs to Rumford then turns back west to Rileys or Livermore Falls where their time runs out and they take rest.

Is there anyplace (a motel) to stay in Jay / Livermore Falls or is there some arrangement for them to go home and rest in their own beds (assuming they live in southern Maine)?

I too have wondered about lodging as I'm unaware of anything Livermore Falls or Jay. There
are several up in the Wilton/Farmington area. The situation at Rumford recently improved
with a recently constructed Best Western by the upper falls. Before that there were two small
mom-and-pop type motels several miles west of town, but one of them burned a couple of
years ago. B&B perhaps?

Thanks for that info S1f3432.

A few notes I can add to support or clarify, based on info I would consider reliable obtained from another source:

-yes, WAPO/POWA should be having a nightly meet/swap at LEeds JCt


- There may be an additional crew involved in a full PORU/RUPO rotation, i.e., RUPO 1st crew cans at Rileys and then a new crew makes an overnight turn Rileys-Rumford-Rileys, then a new crew/rested RUPO (1st) crew makes the RIleys-Portland run the next day. Not sure if the train is actually called RUPO/PORU above RIleys then, or if there is actually an RI-# job/crew doing it.

Basically whatever crew can move the Rumford job will. I've seen PO-2, DJ-1 and the 'regular' crews all at various times. Once Jay is shut down my suspicion is that the Danville and Rumford work will be combined but that's just a guess. After Nov 1 they plan to interchange at Keag again so we'll see if that picks up some traffic on the other side of D1.

Somewhere some time ago I had heard that a second crew was making a turn from Rileys to
Rumford and back while the first crew rested but didn't know if that was still the practice or
not- seems it would make things more predictable. The day I saw the train in Rumford the
engineer was the same one I often see between Rileys and Danville. The old practice from
several years ago of two separate crews departing from Rigby and Rumford and meeting
somewhere in the middle, swapping trains and returning to their initial terminals seemed
to be the most consistent in operation. Of course that took two crews and two sets of power
to pull it off.

Most of the time, a second crew takes them from Rileys to Rumford where they build RUPO and then normally tie down at Dixfield. Sometimes they make it all the way from Rigby to Rumford on one crew, but for some reason, they like to tie the train down at Riley's, even if the crew has 4-5 hours of time left.

Rumford has a new resident in LTEX 8231 joining LTEX 3902- funny I hadn't noticed the roundhouse
was gone until someone mentioned it in another post. Today CSX sent a geometry train east behind
CSX 8052 and 6025, meeting RUPO at Rumford Junction. Photo of them crossing the river in Lewiston.

Excellent coverage today…! I wish I could have gotten out but was lucky enough to see them Friday https://flic.kr/p/2nVQgqe

SAPPI making a major $400 million investment in the Somerset Mill. The plan is to rebuild the No. 2 paper machine to produce solid bleached sulfate board (SBS) products and increase its overall capacity.

Seems like very good news overall.

https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/ ... egan-Maine

We were talking about the PM2 rebuild since they finished #1 so all around great news. Look at the cost of the PM1 rebuild from 2017 to now too…. In any case this will likely mean more rail traffic and good news for CSX