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2561 results for Americas,USA,Vermont; refer to date index:

2003-04-19

April 19th, 2003

On a quiet line in Vermont, there are only two regularly scheduled trains - an Amtrak in the morning and an Amtrak in the afternoon.

2004-06-10

June 10th, 2004

Taking a few minutes out of a busy day, Laura and I took pictures of Amtrak's Vermonter heading through Brattleboro. The tracks through Brattleboro are on the New England Central (NECR) and operate at the same frequency as the CN Dundas sub. The detector in Brattleboro uses a distinctly synthesised voice and gives both axle and car count.

2004-06-15

June 15th, 2004

I wanted to catch Amtrak open hoppers parked in Brattleboro that I'd seen on the 14th without a camera handy. They were already gone! I did find the detector on the NECR line through Brattleboro. It's the first crossing out of the city to the West about 3 miles from town, at mile 116.

2004-06-16

June 16th, 2004

Finally, just before leaving Brattleboro, I heard an EOT on my scanner and got to the tracks just on time to catch a short local train heading North on the NECR tracks in town.

2004-12-19

December 19th, 2004

Travelling from Ste-Agathe, QC (the site of the Ste-Agathe sub, abandonned in the late 1980s) where I grew up to the US, we stopped at Ste-Thérèse yard, near a recently abandonned and torn down GM car factory and the site of a CP-QGRY interchange, then on to Beaconsfield and across the border to the origin of Amtrak's Vermonter at St. Albans.

2004-12-20

December 20th, 2004

We woke up at 6am in St. Albans hoping to catch the 6:35am Vermonter outbound. We missed it by a hair, and after learning from NECR's friendly AGM that there would be no more trains scheduled until about 13:00, we headed South to Burlington, eventually working our way down the VRS line to Rutland. We then headed to White River Junction to spend the night, finding NECR 324 switching in town shortly after we arrived. They continued switching until well after we went to sleep.

2004-12-21

December 21st, 2004

We got up in White River Junction and headed for the tracks just in time to see the Southbound Vermonter. After that we toured the museum next to the station and proceeded along the tracks to Bellows Falls before concluding our travelling in Brattleboro.

2004-12-22

December 22nd, 2004

We went looking at Deerfield yards, and while we did find them, I blew all my pictures of them. :( So it goes. In the afternoon I found a Guilford train heading to the NECR from the yard in Deerfield and chased it at its whopping 5 miles an hour from Bernardston to Northfield before running out of light.

2004-12-24

December 24th, 2004

Having a few minutes to get away a couple of points during the day, I checked the Brattleboro yard, finding it again having shifted its cars around. Brattleboro seems to host a lot of what appear to be coal cars, though I can't figure their purpose there. The yard seems to be switched only at night, which makes finding trains there tough. I also tried to get better shots of the Deerfield Guilford yard. While my shots were better, I really should try again another day (not this trip, unfortunately) to see if I can do it right.

2005-09-07

September 7th, 2005

We headed from my parents' place in Quebec to Laura's parents' place in Brattleboro, Vermont via the scenic route. While Laura had a meeting in Montreal, I spent an hour on the pedestrian bridge in Beaconsfield where I caught 6 trains from 4 companies (CP, CN, AMT, Via), with one foreign unit for good measure. We went to eat on the border between the burroughs of St-Henri and Verdun in Montreal and caught a CN TankTrain unit train heading through town on our way to find food. After that, Laura and I headed to Farnham in the townships to see what Montreal, Maine, and Atlantic had to offer. We found a pair of MMA-lettered GEs switching the yard there but not too much else. From there we went across the border to St. Albans where we caught NECR train 324 leaving town. We heard it get a clearance to Milton to meet a northbound. We did beat it to Milton, but then didn't find the tracks. By the time we found the tracks, we watched the train go by from five or six cars back at the grade crossing line up and didn't try to photograph it. We then found the train it was meeting, which turned out to be a unit train of 6-bay hoppers, but we found no roads to the head end of the train.

2005-09-08

September 8th, 2005

We got up early and checked the NECR yard in Brattleboro. NECR #324, which we saw on the 7th, in both St. Albans and Milton was parked on the track nearest the road with no crew. It remained there for the rest of the day, not starting up until around 20:00. Meanwhile, we heard an NECR train head north through town but did not get to it on time, and missed both the north and south-bound Amtrak, but later in the day heard WJED - the Guilford train from White River Junction to East Deerfield yard and we caught it both in Brattleboro and again, after running some errands (GRS tracks in the area are limited to 5-10 mph) in Bernardston.

2005-09-10

September 10th, 2005

I heard someone say they would be in Brattleboro in 10 minutes, so, wasting no time, I got to the yard and caught NECR #323 arriving with 107 cars and 3 units. The train switched for a while and then had to clear the main into a siding 1700 feet shorter than the train to meet the southbound Amtrak Vermonter. GRS' EDWJ went by after I left the tracks but I needed to get back and did not get to see it heading North. Later in the day, we heard an MEC train heading South and caught WJED (EDWJ's counterpart) heading back through Brattleboro, and chased it to Vernon.

2005-12-23

December 23rd, 2005

We spent the night with a friend in rural New Hampshire and got going late in the morning, working our way West toward Vermont. On the way, we stumbled upon a tourist railway, though not operating at the moment, in Meredith. We proceeded on to White River Junction and headed South along the NECR Palmer sub, stopping to check on the Concord and Claremont, to Bellows Falls where we watched an HLCX-painted Vermont Rail locomotive switch a handful of cars from VTR trackage onto NECR trackage.

2005-12-26

December 26th, 2005

In spite of being a lousy day out, I wanted to get out of the house. At 05:15 I heard the detector at mile 116 go off and just had to investigate. I watched 2 units run light through town and then went back to bed. NECR #324, normally through Brattleboro in the middle of the night, passed through at around 11:30, Amtrak #56 at 12:30 and Guilford's EDWJ (East Deerfield-White River Junction) went through at about 15:30.

2005-12-27

December 27th, 2005

Someone on the NECR list indicated that the Vermonter would have a cab car instead of a second unit, so I made an extra effort to make sure I caught it, after having missed the morning freight thanks to family obligations.

2005-12-28

December 28th, 2005

I went after NECR's Southbound, hoping to shoot it at the bridge in Miller's Falls I accomplished this, but somehow accidentally put my camera into Manual mode instead of Aperture Priority, and didn't notice... causing a number of washed out pictures (originals here). I ran them through a histogram equalisation and they look less (or at least differently) awful, and will figure out what to do with them and the originals when I get home. I then went to Greenfield, hoping to catch EDWJ, which ran unusually early, and rushed back to Brattleboro to catch it there (where it ended up sitting for 2 hours waiting for permission to proceed. I guess it doesn't pay to be early!)

2005-12-29

December 29th, 2005

Leaving Brattleboro for home in a nasty rain storm, we caught one last NECR train heading through town with 4 NECR units.

2006-09-02

September 2nd, 2006

I heard a train in Brattleboro and went down to the tracks to see what was up. I found NECR #611 working the yard. The crew mentionned to eachother that they'd need to switch the wye and this was all the encouragement I needed to stay, eventually getting the train entering the unhealthy looking Brattleboro wye, resulting in me being a shade late getting back for lunch, and a bit of a comical conversation by the crew about what, exactly, the caption for my video of the event should be.

2006-09-03

September 3rd, 2006

An EOT device was blaring on the scanner all day in spite of Labour Day. Eventually I went down to the yard to see what was there. NECR #611, three units light power, was parked and remained so for around a day and a half (from the night of the 2nd to the morning of the 4th).

2006-09-05

September 5th, 2006

We headed up to NMH for a little while, and watched NECR #611 switch along the causeway for a few minutes in Brattleboro on our way home.

2006-09-06

September 6th, 2006

NECR #611 showed up with a great set of engines - ex-Conrail-ex-CN-ex-BN-NECR - and so we watched them switch for a few minutes, also getting the Vermonter no its way through. In the evening, I finally heard GRS WJED on the scanner, and we went down to the station to shoot it in somewhat dark lighting conditions.

2006-09-08

September 8th, 2006

Seeking a few parting shots of NECR before we took off in the evening, I headed down to the causeway to watch NECR #611 work, where I was greeted with comments about the return of "that Canadian", so: hi Mr. Conductor!

2007-09-01

September 1st, 2007

I heard horns as a train entered Brattleboro but didn't have the scanner on and so had no warning. After a few minutes it became apparent that the train was still in town so I went down to check it out and found NECR #323 parked on the siding in town with no crew. It didn't leave until around 2 the next morning.

2007-09-02

September 2nd, 2007

I went down after lunch to shoot the hour-late southbound Amtrak Vermonter, finding it with locomotive AMTK 4 trailing. Several minutes later it crossed the detector 3 miles away at Vernon at 13 miles an hour.

2007-09-03

September 3rd, 2007

The very last day of our trip saw us waking up at a friend's house in Burlington, Vermont and stopping in at St. Albans to see what was around, crossing Lake Champlain to see Rouses Point and finding the Amtrak Adirondack with its complement of border guards and not much else. We saw a few other trains from the 401 as we returned home later in the afternoon but did not have the time to stop. With that, our 10-day, 4300 km mixed social and railfan trip came to an end.

2007-12-23

December 23rd, 2007

We started out in Glens Falls, New York with an eye toward getting the Batten Kill railroad in Greenwich, NY on the off-chance they'd be outside the barn. As we got ready to go we realised it was a silly idea and headed straight for Whitehall, NY. On our way we picked up an EOT and tore off to the next grade crossing where we just missed 3 NS units running southbound light power on the D&H. After a brief southward chase we realised we would not get ahead of them and returned on our original track to Whitehall. A few minutes later VRS Rutland DS indicated that the Whitehall job had already left Whitehall back for Rutland so we skipped Whitehall and went straight for Rutland, catching the Whitehall job returning to Rutland with 5 units and 42 loads. After a quick crew change and switch, they took off with 4 units and 37 loads for Bellows Falls and we returned to Whitehall to see what the D&H had to offer. Eventually the northbound Adirondack came, then 931 came -- the same one we shot over a day earlier not 100 miles away in Delanson -- followed shortly by the southbound Adirondack. We got 931 going through the station after meeting the Amtrak and then returned to Rutland taking a few hasty long exposures of AMTK 716 getting ready to head south before calling it a night at a relative's house in town.

2007-12-24

December 24th, 2007

We left my cousin's house in Rutland after a lazy breakfast toward Brattleboro, our destination. We heard GMRC 263 and locomotive 801 that sounded like different trains. We weren't sure until we found 263 with 801 leading fairly far east in Chester, where we waited for them on finding rusty rails. A large cloud bank was rolling in rather suspensefully on this first day of sunlight on our trip. The train took a while to arrive in Chester - we overestimated how far ahead of it we were - and when it did come, it stopped just short of the shot I wanted for the crew to buy lunch in town. After a few minutes delay and some mercy from the clouds, we got our shot and then b-lined it to Brattleboro for our own lunch and seasonal family reunion.

2007-12-27

December 27th, 2007

On the 26th I woke to the sound of a whistle as a train left Brattleboro. This time I woke up at dawn and turned my scanner on, almost immediately hearing NECR 323 and 324 converging on Brattleboro. We headed down to the yard and shot both, then chased 324 the three miles to the first crossing south of town by the detector at Vernon before returning for breakfast. My lunch later was interrupted by the sound of Pan Am WJED entering Brattleboro and so I went down to the yard to watch it and the Vermonter head south.

2007-12-28

December 28th, 2007

I went down to Brattleboro yard to see the morning 323/324 meet again. 323 arrived on queue but 324 was nowhere to be seen and we soon found out the meet would be taking place in Putney. Hours later I heard 324 arrive in town -- with 323's power. I went down to the yard to see it come in and found it with 5 units, including GEXR 3843! Then two local railfans showed up at my perch on Riverside Rd and told me that 324's train had come apart in Putney and they'd be going back for it. I went to the Amtrak station to wait for them to head back north for the second half of their train and was immediately blocked in by passengers for the southbound Amtrak. I waited at the platform whether I liked it or not for the southbound Vermonter and the northbound power move with my old friend Barney leading.

2007-12-29

December 29th, 2007

We left Brattleboro for my parents' place in the Laurentians, stopping only at St. Albans to see CN 323 with 8814-8840, my first of the CN 88xxs. Weather was miserable and rainy all the way up, so we did not stop to see NECR 323/324 meeting in Brattleboro, VRS 307 coming into Burlington, or the three trains queued up at Rouses Point on the D&H. Next time.

2009-02-14

February 14th, 2009

We started our day in Rouses Point, New York, where we found the D&H quite quiet. We crossed Lake Champlain over to St. Albans, Vermont, where the NECR showed equally little sign of life, so decided to follow the VRS through Rutland to get to Brattleboro, our destination. Not long after leaving Burlington, we heard two extras being set up to meet in Chester, Vermont. Being two hours from there we had lots of time to wonder if we'd see it, and along the way we were distracted by an SBU blaring around New Haven, Vermont. We knew we were near a train on the Rutland-Burlington line but after trying to find it unsuccessfully for a while, we pushed on, ultimately reaching Chester about an hour after the meet had taken place. We caught the westbound in the woods about 5 miles out of town, but didn't get ahead of the eastbound until Bellows Falls, where the train was headed.

2009-02-15

February 15th, 2009

We woke up to the sound of horns and heard NECR #611 heading through town. We chased it to the main crossing in Vernon.

2009-05-10

May 10th, 2009

Back in Brattleboro, we got up early to see NECR 324 heading through town.

2009-06-03

June 3rd, 2009

I headed down to New England for my high school reunion and picked up WJED at Brattleboro with a PanAm painted unit meeting the northbound Vermonter.

2014-06-05

June 5th, 2014

We stopped to check out the engine shop in St. Alban's and NECR 324 at Brattleboro on our way to Massachusetts.

2016-03-04

March 4th, 2016

Travelling north out of Massachusetts, we heard NECR 321 out of Brattleboro and found it at Bellows Falls station before staying the night in that town.

2016-03-05

March 5th, 2016

The final leg of our trip saw us wake up to the persistent sound of a symmetric braking unit on the scanner in Bellows Falls, which led us to parked-running Guilford engines on the Walpole side of the river, before we turned north to see the Claremont and Concord, west to Rutland, and north to Burlington, stumbling completely by chance on a local working the Omya plant in Florence that we did not hear on the radio. We wrapped up our impromptu vacation stopping in Montreal to visit family.

2019-06-07

June 7th, 2019

On my way to NMH to 20th reunion, I caught a southbound NECR with 3 rather thoroughly rebuilt SD40-2s switching the yard.