So this morning I had a bit of time in my schedule to head out and take advantage of the nice weather and go for a walk.  I decided on trying to get up to a spot a bit north and hopefully catch Providence & Worcester train NR-2 along the way.  Well, I did catch NR-2 when I did my walk – and at three other spots along the way.  Oh, yeah, and they did a little something out of the ordinary in Groton too.  Glad I had the scanner on, or I would have missed it for sure.  Keep reading to see what I’m talking about.

I headed out a little later than usual, so I wasn’t sure where I’d be able to catch NR-2, but I set my sights on Stoddard Cove in Ledyard – may as well aim for what I wanted.  As I was rolling north approaching ast the Sub Base, I heard NR-2 report to the Worcester dispatcher that they were south of MP13.  OK, I think I should be able to just make it up to Stoddard in time to catch them.

A little bit later, I pulled into the parking area of Stoddard Cove and parked the car.  Just as I was gathering my gear, I heard a faint marker chirp on the scanner, indicating that NR-2 was a mile or two away.  Time to get my ass out of the car and into position.

Next was to decide on where to shoot from.  Should I take a chance and walk down the causeway, or stick around the boat launch area?  Just as I was contemplating that, I began to hear a growing low frequency rumble.  Could that be NR-2?  Well, if so, I’d never make it down the causeway, so the boat launch it was!

Just as I found an angle I liked, with a pair of swans in the frame, NR-2 came into view on the north end of Stoddard Cove.

But there was something odd – they weren’t going all that fast.  Maybe there was still trackwork going on around here, and they were under a speed restriction.  OK, if that’s the case, I could probably beat them down to Mill Cove.  I figured it was worth a try.

I got to Mill Cove about 30 seconds before NR-2 called south of MP5 – perfect timing!  So I rattled off a few shots of the passing freight.

With the train still plodding along, I thought I might as well tempt fate and try to catch them at the USS Nautilus.  So back into the car I went, and headed south to try and leapfrog NR-2 again.

Well, I got stuck at the traffic light at the Sub Base & USS Nautilus – as I was sitting at a red light, NR-2 rolled in front of me.  So a shot at the Nautilus was out.  OK, I could get ahead of them at the bottom of Fairview yard, making that my next stop.  So a left onto Military Highway, and I sailed right past the Nautilus overlook park (and Mark Shenking who just bagged NR-2 there) on my way to Fairview.

I got there just as the train was entering the yard limits, but just as I was parking I heard something odd on the scanner.  NR-2 was talking with the Amtrak New London dispatcher, and mentioned that they’d be wyeing one engine.  Interesting…  With that little tidbit of information, I headed trackside and got a few shots of NR-2 rolling past me.

From there, it was time to head over to the old New Haven SS-119 tower.  While waiting there, Amtrak 190 crossed the Thames and headed past the old tower (which is slated for demolition sometime in the future).

After a bit of a wait while the crew seperated the two engines, one of them came down the west leg of the wye

Then crossed in front of the tower

And came up the east leg of the wye (this is from the Fairview Ave. bridge)

Then Rod lined the switch for them to couple this engine onto the train

Then Rod hoped aboard the south facing engine to bring it back to the rest of the consist.

After everything was tied back up, the crew got back on board and headed south.

At that point I had to bid Mark a farewell and call it a morning – I was running out of time, and hell, I bagged them at four different spots within 8 or so miles of each other.  Not a bad morning at all.

Thanks for looking!
Tom