Plow Train In Waltham
Snow is predicted tomorrow, will the plows be out?! Hah...not likely...so hedmre is another from the tops of 2018 folder and the one and only time I shot these moving.
The third Nor'Easter in a week dumped 18 inches of fresh snow on the Boston area during mid-March 2018. This misfortune for the citizens of the Commonwealth provided some good fortune to those of us of the rail persuasion in the form of a Keolis plow train operating on the MBTA northside routes.
A pair of rebuilt original ex Boston and Maine double track Russell snowplows dating from 1949 bracketing GMTX GP38-2 2636 (blt. Sep. 1970 as straight GP38 BO 4809) are on home rails as they work westbound on the former B&M Fitchburg Route mainline near MP 9.8 in this view looking west from the Jackson Street overpass. In this going away view the work train is crossing Elm Street and passing the historic Waltham Tower. The tower was built in 1928 and had call sign OD, and when retired 85 years later in June 2013 it was the last manned interlocking tower left in service on the MBTA system and in the state as a whole. The tower was also the location where the Watertown branch joined the mainline, once a through route from West Cambridge to here it was cut in the middle in 1960 and lasted decades longer as the Watertown Branch on the east end and the Bemis Branch on this end, though all of it is now removed.
Waltham, Massachusetts
Wednesday March 14, 2018
Plow Train In Waltham
Snow is predicted tomorrow, will the plows be out?! Hah...not likely...so hedmre is another from the tops of 2018 folder and the one and only time I shot these moving.
The third Nor'Easter in a week dumped 18 inches of fresh snow on the Boston area during mid-March 2018. This misfortune for the citizens of the Commonwealth provided some good fortune to those of us of the rail persuasion in the form of a Keolis plow train operating on the MBTA northside routes.
A pair of rebuilt original ex Boston and Maine double track Russell snowplows dating from 1949 bracketing GMTX GP38-2 2636 (blt. Sep. 1970 as straight GP38 BO 4809) are on home rails as they work westbound on the former B&M Fitchburg Route mainline near MP 9.8 in this view looking west from the Jackson Street overpass. In this going away view the work train is crossing Elm Street and passing the historic Waltham Tower. The tower was built in 1928 and had call sign OD, and when retired 85 years later in June 2013 it was the last manned interlocking tower left in service on the MBTA system and in the state as a whole. The tower was also the location where the Watertown branch joined the mainline, once a through route from West Cambridge to here it was cut in the middle in 1960 and lasted decades longer as the Watertown Branch on the east end and the Bemis Branch on this end, though all of it is now removed.
Waltham, Massachusetts
Wednesday March 14, 2018