Plow Extra East
Plow Extra WA-3 throws the snow at Old Bangor Road on 2/13/2017, during winter storm Orson.
The winter of 2016-2017, was probably the worst in recent years. The first major storm hit on Halloween, followed by back to back blizzards in December, dumping as much as two feet in places. Then in January we had storms almost every week.
This alone plugged the railroads up, since about the time they got dug out another storm hit and buried everything again.
Then on 2/13/17 the biggest storm of the year hit. Many places got well over 3 feet of snow. A friend was the engineer on POWA and met a ballast regulator at Leeds Jct as the storm was winding up. With snow from this system and the previous storms, snow in many places was as high as the walkways on the locomotives by the time they got to Waterville.
Following the storm, virtually every railroad ran plows and spreaders. This extra was running during the storm, first plowing to Hinkley I believe to rescue Sappi-3 at the mill.
Then back to CPF-110 and to Bangor, before doing the Bucksport Branch, then east on the main to Old Town and points east the following day. The train ended up derailing just outside Bucksport. By this point the paper mill was being scrapped and Pan Am decided to pull the remaining scrap cars out, before discontinuing runs to Bucksport, due to the extent of the damage.
Originally, a former MEC spreader was going to be used on the return trip. However the turntable at Waterville became snowed in, so the railroad settled for exMEC plow 90, the only Jordan wedge plow on the railroad. I ended up catching them at Old Bangor Road in East Newport and got some nice shots of the train blasting through the snow banks.
Pan Am only ran a few more plow extras after this, so I was lucky to catch it when I did. With storms being as weak as they are now and most of the snow fighting equipment being out of service, its unlikely we will see plows out in the near future.
Pan Am Railways
Train: WA-3
2/13/2017
East Newport, ME
ST District 1 Freight Main Line
Plow Extra East
Plow Extra WA-3 throws the snow at Old Bangor Road on 2/13/2017, during winter storm Orson.
The winter of 2016-2017, was probably the worst in recent years. The first major storm hit on Halloween, followed by back to back blizzards in December, dumping as much as two feet in places. Then in January we had storms almost every week.
This alone plugged the railroads up, since about the time they got dug out another storm hit and buried everything again.
Then on 2/13/17 the biggest storm of the year hit. Many places got well over 3 feet of snow. A friend was the engineer on POWA and met a ballast regulator at Leeds Jct as the storm was winding up. With snow from this system and the previous storms, snow in many places was as high as the walkways on the locomotives by the time they got to Waterville.
Following the storm, virtually every railroad ran plows and spreaders. This extra was running during the storm, first plowing to Hinkley I believe to rescue Sappi-3 at the mill.
Then back to CPF-110 and to Bangor, before doing the Bucksport Branch, then east on the main to Old Town and points east the following day. The train ended up derailing just outside Bucksport. By this point the paper mill was being scrapped and Pan Am decided to pull the remaining scrap cars out, before discontinuing runs to Bucksport, due to the extent of the damage.
Originally, a former MEC spreader was going to be used on the return trip. However the turntable at Waterville became snowed in, so the railroad settled for exMEC plow 90, the only Jordan wedge plow on the railroad. I ended up catching them at Old Bangor Road in East Newport and got some nice shots of the train blasting through the snow banks.
Pan Am only ran a few more plow extras after this, so I was lucky to catch it when I did. With storms being as weak as they are now and most of the snow fighting equipment being out of service, its unlikely we will see plows out in the near future.
Pan Am Railways
Train: WA-3
2/13/2017
East Newport, ME
ST District 1 Freight Main Line