Amtrak GP38-2TCs

Amtrak Extra, Millers Falls, Massachusetts, October 22, 2013

Unusual Locomotives Cross the Millers High Bridge.

There’s something very ‘October’ about Millers Falls. It’s just a bit spooky and has an air of decay and rust about it. The village has seen better times, but it’s a great place to photograph trains.

Downtown Millers Falls, Massachusetts. Exposed on October 23, 2013 with a Lumix LX3.
Downtown Millers Falls, Massachusetts. Exposed on October 23, 2013 with a Lumix LX3.

On October 22, 2013, Amtrak ran a set of light engines on New England Central from Palmer to North Walpole.

Amtrak GP38-2TCs
These are unusual locomotives: built as model GP40TC for Canada’s GO Transit they were acquired by Amtrak and later converted into ‘GP38-2TCs’ by Altoona shops. (Thanks to Rich Reed for help in identifying locomotive’s lineage). Amtrak tends to assign them to maintenance trains. They are rare visitors to the New England Central at Millers Falls. Canon 7D photo.

I spent the morning at Millers Falls photographing New England Central and Pan Am Railways freights, and culminated my efforts with this image of Amtrak’s engines crossing the Millers River on the high bridge.

This pin-connected deck truss dates from the early 20th century and like just about everything in Millers Falls has a look that harks back to another time.

I exposed the image of the bridge with my Canon 7D fitted with a f2.0 100mm lens. I made some minor adjustments to the RAW file in post-processing to adjust color balance, saturation and contrast to improve the look of the silver locomotives against colorful autumn trees, then converted the file to a relatively small Jpg for display here.

See my new book North American Railroad Family Trees for discussion of the evolution Amtrak and the North America rail network.

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