Tag Archives: deregulation

photography

Classic Chrome: Maine Central East Wind follow up view.

6 Comments

A couple of years ago I posted the coming-on view of this train at Northern Maine Junction. (see: Maine Central’s East Wind).

Last December, I located and scanned this trailing view.

Maine Central’s hot intermodal train East Wind blows through Northern Maine Junction in July 1983. Exposed on Ektachrome film with a Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens. Although not a great photo, this documented a fleeting period of railroading, and I'm glad to have made it.
Maine Central’s hot intermodal train East Wind blows through Northern Maine Junction in July 1983. Exposed on Ektachrome film with a Leica 3A with 50mm Summitar lens. Although not a great photo, this documented a fleeting period of railroading, and I’m glad to have made it. I think it was the first time I saw a caboose-less freight.

As I mentioned in the earlier post; at the time I photographed a single Maine Central U25B with two flat and four Sealand trailers, I was decidedly unimpressed.

One locomotive, short train, no caboose?

What I was witnessing was the result of transportation deregulation that completely changed the American freight railroads.

Innovation spurred by deregulation that began as short intermodal trains such as this one, gradually evolved into mile-long transcontinental double-stack moves.

Will intermodal someday return to the Maine Central.

Tracking the Light is on the move today

(by rail, of course).