{"id":13242,"date":"2015-11-19T06:50:55","date_gmt":"2015-11-19T11:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/?p=13242"},"modified":"2015-11-19T07:23:27","modified_gmt":"2015-11-19T12:23:27","slug":"in-all-these-years-wed-never-seen-this-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/in-all-these-years-wed-never-seen-this-before\/","title":{"rendered":"In all these Years, We\u2019d Never seen this before!"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is always a delight to stumble upon something relatively unusual and have the foresight and knowledge to make the most of the opportunity.<\/p>\n

The old Boston, Barre & Gardner was among the railroads gobbled up by the growing Boston & Maine during the golden years of American railroads. The line primarily extended from Worcester to Gardner and beyond to Peterboro, New Hampshire.<\/p>\n

Historically, the route crossed B&M\u2019s Fitchburg line on a set of diamonds in front of the Gardner station. Back in 1880, three passenger trains a day served the 27 miles between Worcester and Gardner.<\/p>\n

By the 1950s, one lonely train covered the run, and this made its final journey on March 7, 1953.\u00a0Check out Robert Willoughby Jones\u2019 book Boston & Maine: Forest, River and Mountain <\/em> for photos.<\/p>\n

These days, the line between Worcester and Gardner is operated by Providence & Worcester, and I\u2019ve featured it on several occasions on Tracking the Light, while a short vestige of the north end of the route extends from a connection with Pan Am Southern in Gardner to a shipper a short distance away.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A vestige of the old Boston, Barre & Gardner makes for a little bit of living history.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"Pan<\/a>
Pan Am Railway’s F1-1 is a local based out of Fitchburg and works this rarely used section of line as required.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Last week, Bob Arnold, Paul Goewey and I were photographing in Gardner when we noticed the flange ways were clear on this rarely used stub branch. \u2018There\u2019s got to be an engine up the line,\u2019 I said, and we went to investigate.<\/p>\n

We found our quarry, and waited for the locomotive to return.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/a>
A lone GP40 eases its way down the branch passed a furniture store.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The locomotive crosses Main Street in Gardner, near the corner of Chestnut.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"The<\/a>
The Furniture Center is among the buildings that feature in old photos of the branch crossing B&M’s Fitchburg Division mainline. This image required a bit of post processing contrast adjustment to retain detail in the deep shadows of the charcoal painted locomotive and the bright highlights of the building beyond.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As I explained to a friend later: this operation might happen every<\/em> Monday, or only on odd number days following a full moon in months ending in the letter \u2018R\u2019, but in more than 30 years of photography in the area, none of us had ever seen it before.<\/p>\n

Hooray for fortuity!<\/p>\n

Tracking the Light posts new photos Daily!<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

[Tracking the Light<\/strong> also offers advice and insights on the how the photos were made.]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is always a delight to stumble upon something relatively unusual and have the foresight and knowledge to make the most of the opportunity. The old Boston, Barre & Gardner was among the railroads gobbled up by the growing Boston & Maine during the golden years of American railroads. The line primarily extended from Worcester … Continue reading In all these Years, We\u2019d Never seen this before!<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13239,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"footnotes":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[10,48],"tags":[3786,4537,3052,678,3097,3051,104,82,883],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/Pan_Am_FI-1_328_silo_Gardner_DSCF6967.jpg?fit=4896%2C3264","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2BVuC-3rA","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13242"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13247,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13242\/revisions\/13247"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13239"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13242"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13242"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/briansolomon.com\/trackingthelight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13242"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}