A New Train – Presenting P&W NR-4

The Providence & Worcester railroad recently moved their interchange with the New England Central from New London to Willimantic, CT. Up until now, the interchange was worked by the P&W with extras from Plainfield, 3-4 times a week, running at various times of the day. As of Sunday January 6, 2008, it became a regular job, sporting the symbol NR-4. But as I hinted to Saturday, it wouldn’t run in daylight. Rather NR-4 did their work under cover of darkness. But that didn’t stop me from catching the debut of the train and photographing it.

I was in Willimantic to run a couple errands Sunday evening when I realized what time it was – NR-4 was on duty at 9pm, and it was now about 10:15. So I started heading east along the P&W’s Willimantic Branch with the scanner monitoring the P&W, NECR and marker frequencies, hoping to hear something. I went all the way to Versailles without hearing a thing – no marker, no contact with the dispatcher, no nothing. At Amgraph, I checked out the tracks – it looked like something may have been by. But it was odd that I didn’t hear at least the marker – the road isn’t that far from the tracks, so I should have picked something up…unless they went out as light engines – if that was the case, the marker wouldn’t be armed & transmitting information. So on that hunch, I headed back to where I started.

As I was traveling down Jerusalem Road in South Windham, someone was toning up the NECR dispatcher. Hmmm…at this hour, there’s usually not a NECR job around, so that meant it was NR-4. As I rolled down Route 203, nearing the P&W grade crossing, I got my confirmation – the P&W was asking permission into the yard to get their 22 cars. Next stop was the yard by the foot bridge.

As I neared the Frog Bridge, I saw NR-4 pulling under it – a pair of locomotives running light. So that was the reason why I didn’t pick up the marker. Taking the scenic route to the yard, I went down by Bridge Street to make sure they weren’t coming onto the main – which in hindsight was pretty dumb – they only got permission to come down the runner from the NECR dispatcher. After seeing the power stopped near where the Saturday extra dropped their two cars, I then made my way to the middle of the yard to try to get some shots before they move again.

With tripod, camera & lenses in hand, I made my way into the yard for a couple shots. There was a light fog in the air, so that added to the mood of the shots. First was a head-on shot of the power sitting on the track, with the crew members walking along, looking for their cars.

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Moving a bit further to my left, I got a vertical shot with the old Capitol Theater in the background

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And a horizontal, but this time I went with a black & white treatment, giving it a nice eerie feel with the fog hanging in the street lights.

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With the locomotives still sitting there, I figured it was worth a try to go up on the foot bridge and get some overhead shots. I got a couple shots of the power, cars and Bridge Street in the background. One went to Railpace, and one is here.

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Not long after that, the crew got back on the train and headed my way. They stopped below me, and the conductor got out, and we chatted for a couple seconds before they headed back east – again as light engines. Apparently the NECR didn’t have the cars ready for them. As he got back on the engine, I got a shot of the pair heading under me

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As they continued into the darkness, I swapped lenses to the telephoto and tried to thread the needle between the wires on the east side of the foot bridge to get a couple streak type shots. Here’s what I came away with as the train rolled across the Willimantic River and under the Frog Bridge

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At that point, I packed things up, went back to the car and headed for home. Not exactly what I had hoped for, but I think I did rather well…

Thanks for looking!
Tom