"Up North" Gawking (District 1 sightings)

Interesting as they just put in a new bridge, repeater and a decent amount of maintenance on the line this past summer.

They had a derailment in Winslow either at the end of July or the start of August. They left the locomotives and cars there for maybe a week if not more, before they rerailed them. I don't think there has been a train to Augusta since then.

Just as a minor correction, they didn't replace a bridge on this line, they just did some work to the abutments and added some new hand rails. The summary of work can be found here: https://www.enr.com/articles/57591-best ... am-railway

Is that the bridge at MP 69.96? I saw on NERAIL that the bridge over 7 mile stream was replaced pretty recently along with CSX’s track work during the summer.

It is, just like it says in the article... it wasn't replaced, simply repaired as noted in the same article.

Brain fart when I asked the initial question. I meant to ask if the 69.96 bridge is the same one that crosses over 7 mile brook which apparently CSX worked on recently, or a different one entirely.

Edit: apparently the 7 mile brook bridge is in Vassalboro, article notes bridge 69.96 as being in Augusta.

The location is an error on their part, but it's definitely the same bridge.

The next one is south of MP 65, and the next one north is over the Sebasticook north of MP 80.

L072-22 west was 8873/8009 and 57 cars.

https://youtu.be/qzZAl2DZB08?si=bN4P5ofm8zNYGzGY

Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the first interchange run up to Keag right about this time a year ago?

It’s crazy to think how much things have changed since then… even the 45 car train size limit (if it wasn’t 45, it was right around there - 48 maybe?) seems to have gone away pretty quickly.

Can’t wait to see what other tricks CSX has up their sleeve.

Today's L072e is 518/7787/7774 and 43 cars.

mrj1981 wrote: ↑Mon Dec 02, 2024 9:35 pm Correct me if I’m wrong, but wasn’t the first interchange run up to Keag right about this time a year ago?

It’s crazy to think how much things have changed since then… even the 45 car train size limit (if it wasn’t 45, it was right around there - 48 maybe?) seems to have gone away pretty quickly.

Can’t wait to see what other tricks CSX has up their sleeve.

The interchange is limited to 45 cars depending on how its handled. Currently, the connecting job on EMR Train 909 reports at Mattawamkeag, pulls all cars from the interchange and either they run to Bancroft to dump the NBSR bound cars, or they back haul them to Hardy Pond and then set off the MNR bound traffic on the west end of Knights Siding. They pick up CSX bound traffic from MNR at Knights as well as CSX traffic from NBSR at either Hardy or Bancroft and then drop them for CSX. With the track work, CSX has been running at night so its worked pretty good. Right now Track 5 and 3 can fit about 45 cars +/- each. When they first started the interchange, they were using one track for inbound cars and one for outbound cars while keeping the main line clear, they have also done a live hand off a few times when trains exceeded the yard capacity. Which I think they recently ran a 907 out of McAdam with just traffic from there and Saint John with the entire train being handed off at Mattawamkeag.

As for the proposed expansion of the yard, there has been no progress since the brush cutting last fall.

CSX L070 (?) at Danville Jct this afternoon with an engine consist of 7799-7807-7774-316-512-503. Appeared to be
tied down on the main with no crew members aboard.