It’s what they call a ‘Hail Mary shot.’ New England Central 611 rolls north at East Northfield, Massachusetts in a fleeting fading glimmer of October sun.
Tracking the Light posts daily!
Tonight (February 8, 2013) a blizzard rages outside the window. The roads are closed, the railroad is quiet (so far as I know), and I’m not out, knee-deep in snow, trying to make night photos. (Ok, so I’m as mad as hatter, or worse—used to be lots of hatters here in Monson, back in the day.) However, I pulled up an image from my digital archive of Florida East Coast GP40-2 417 at New England Central’s Palmer Yard office on February 22, 2011. There’s something incongruous about a Florida East Coast locomotive in the snow. I’d met Bob Buck of Tucker’s Hobbies that evening for dinner, and later we’d stopped by Palmer yard to see what was about.
Since that night, nearly two years ago, New England Central has applied its own lettering to several former Florida East Coast locomotives; Bob has passed on; and New England Central has become part of the Genesee & Wyoming short line railway empire. Everything changes.
For more about how to make better night photos digitally see: Lumix LX-3—part 2: Existing Light Digital Night Shots
One of the benefits of my visits to Monson, Massachusetts, is being within ear-shot of the former Central Vermont Railway, now operated by New England Central (NECR). Yesterday morning (January 10, 2013), I awoke to the sounds of a southward freight clawing its way up Stateline Hill (so-named because it crests near the Massachusetts-Connecticut state line). NECR freights take their time ascending the grade and on a clear day I can hear them climbing from about the time they depart the Palmer Yard. As a kid I’d count the crossings: CV’s GP9s whistling a sequence of mournful blasts for each one. Yesterday morning I dithered for a few minutes. Should I go after this train? Or, should I keep my nose to grindstone, writing? Clear skies forced the answer: GO!
My hesitation caused me to miss the opportunity for a photograph in Stafford Springs, Connecticut. This was blessing in disguise, since I’ve often caught the train here and then broke off the chase before getting deeper into Connecticut. Having missed Stafford Springs, I pursued further south, and caught the train four times at various points between Stafford and Willimantic. This a relatively easy chase, as Route 32 runs roughly parallel to the line.
Three elements made yesterday’s chase a satisfying exercise:
1) The train was operating at a suitable time of the morning for southward daylight photography (lately, NECR’s trains seem to have headed south either way too early or too late in the day for my photographic preferences—I’ve been photographing this line for more than 30 years, first chasing it with my Dad in the early 1980s, so I can be unusually choosy).
2) It was a ‘clear blue dome’—sunny, bright, and cloudless, always a great time to make morning photographs.
3) As it turned out, one of New England Central’s yellow and blue GP38s was leading. As I’ve mentioned previously, while this was once NECR’s standard locomotive, in recent years the type has become comparatively scarce on NECR, with many of the locomotives working the line wearing paint of former operators (Conrail, Union Pacific, Florida East Coast, and others).
I was also eager for a clear day to test some recently acquired equipment, especially my new Canon 40mm Pancake Lens, which arrived on Monday. I’ll make this lens the detailed topic of future posts.
After abandoning NECR at Willimantic, I made a few photographs of the town, which still has some wonderful old mill buildings, then continued south to New London where I focused on Amtrak for a while.
Since New England Central is among properties recently acquired by Genesee & Wyoming, I’m anticipating change and wondering when I’ll photograph the first orange & black locomotives
See my recent published book North American Locomotives for more information on New England Central’s and Genesee & Wyoming locomotives.
