The B&A in the Conrail era

Reminiscing about the Conrail days on the old B&A...

Dispatching used to be done in Springfield, MA.

The Conrail Springfield East End Dispatcher handled from roughly Springfield to Boston, the Conrail Springfield West End Dispatcher handled from Springfield west.

There were several "Operator" desks that handled the secondary tracks - later merged into the main desks.

Les Woodbury was the day trick dispatcher on the East End, Ray Framarin was the evening dispatcher on the East End.

For the longest time, WAFR-1, the Framingham mainline local was assigned the 9556.

I worked adjacent to the main line, and you could set your watch to SPSB as it went by my place of employment every night at 10:51 PM.

Welded rail came to the area in the mid 80's - and Conrail took up the second main (now back in place) from CP33 west.

When GM in Framingham was in full operation, Nevins and North Framingham yards were ALWAYS full.

Conrail kept the physical plant in great shape!

Those were the days......

Big improvements when Conrail came on the scene...in '74 PC was wracking them up all over the place on the B&A. Welded rail put in during the summer of '76 west of Worcester. Those desks besides the east and west end ds positions were also dispatcher positions....Old Colony dispatcher was one desk as was the New Haven line, IIRC. Single tracking of the B&A coincided with the need to replace the block signal system that had been put in place in the early '50's by the NYC. As far back as the late '50's the plan was to single track the B&A but there wasn't the money and justification priority to get it done. By the time of the Conrail split, the company was one mean blue machine! Also, as was the case historically, the B&A served Conrail as a test-bed for all kinds of new technology: flange lubricators, AC-traction, and, the signal system installed when the B&A was single tracked.