It Just Feels Different
That's what I thought when I shot this. Sure, CSXT power is nothing new here as for nearly two decades it was normal to see CSXT run thru power between Ayer and Rigby. But while this may LOOK the same, and while it may appear that what was old is new again, the truth is entirely different. This is no longer run thru foreign power, no this is very much now on home rails. This is no longer Pan Am train AYPO and now it is CSXT train M426 a Selkirk to Rigby manifest.
In reality very little has changed, and it's the same traffic on the same schedule with the same hand off between the same employees dispatched from the same desks in Billerica. But since June 1 the Selkirk and Jacksonville gang have been calling the shots when CSXT closed on its purchase of Pan Am Railways.
I didn't get out on the first day or any day until 10 days in. But with the weather looking perfect I decided to make the trek up to Ayer after work where I found the crew building their train right on schedule. Thankfully the crap shoot of whether you'd get a nice painted blue PAR leader or an ugly patch job 'blob' on this train is no more. In one of the first visible changes executed only a couple days after the closing CSXT began assigning IETMS, ACSES and cab signal equipped older GE AC4400CWs at Selkirk so that they could run straight thru over the Berkshire and Boston Lines and up the Worcester main and then across MBTA territory and on to Maine without a wasteful locomotive change at Ayer as has been the norm for the last few years.
Matched and relatively clean power is a sight for sore eyes in these parts, and while many fans are sad to see Pan Am go I'm decidedly not one one them!
It was truly a joy to see this for the first time and chase it east to Lawrence, and I look forward to the influx of more CSXT power across the system in the coming months. Whether there will be any meaningful changes to service, customer relations, employee morale, and a whole host of other ailments this property suffers remains to be seen but I remain cautiously optimistic. For now though, at least it's nice that this flagship manifest already shows a semblance of improvement, if only superficially.
M426 has pulled out the east leg of the wye at CPF AY on CSXT's former Pan Am's Freight Mainline at PAR milepost 315.75 (measured from Mattawamkeag, ME) and milepost 35.75 (measured from Boston North Station on the Keolis/MBTA Fitchburg Line). They are in the process of doubling up their train in the Hill Yard in this view looking west off the Main Street overpass. Above and behind the power can be seen the surviving former B&M interlocking tower dating from 1928 that closed in 1980. And poking skyward to the right of the brick tower can be seen the wooden steeple of Saint Mary's Catholic Church whose parish was founded in 1858, thirteen years after the Fitchburg Railroad first reached town.
Ayer, Massachusetts
Friday June 10, 2022
It Just Feels Different
That's what I thought when I shot this. Sure, CSXT power is nothing new here as for nearly two decades it was normal to see CSXT run thru power between Ayer and Rigby. But while this may LOOK the same, and while it may appear that what was old is new again, the truth is entirely different. This is no longer run thru foreign power, no this is very much now on home rails. This is no longer Pan Am train AYPO and now it is CSXT train M426 a Selkirk to Rigby manifest.
In reality very little has changed, and it's the same traffic on the same schedule with the same hand off between the same employees dispatched from the same desks in Billerica. But since June 1 the Selkirk and Jacksonville gang have been calling the shots when CSXT closed on its purchase of Pan Am Railways.
I didn't get out on the first day or any day until 10 days in. But with the weather looking perfect I decided to make the trek up to Ayer after work where I found the crew building their train right on schedule. Thankfully the crap shoot of whether you'd get a nice painted blue PAR leader or an ugly patch job 'blob' on this train is no more. In one of the first visible changes executed only a couple days after the closing CSXT began assigning IETMS, ACSES and cab signal equipped older GE AC4400CWs at Selkirk so that they could run straight thru over the Berkshire and Boston Lines and up the Worcester main and then across MBTA territory and on to Maine without a wasteful locomotive change at Ayer as has been the norm for the last few years.
Matched and relatively clean power is a sight for sore eyes in these parts, and while many fans are sad to see Pan Am go I'm decidedly not one one them!
It was truly a joy to see this for the first time and chase it east to Lawrence, and I look forward to the influx of more CSXT power across the system in the coming months. Whether there will be any meaningful changes to service, customer relations, employee morale, and a whole host of other ailments this property suffers remains to be seen but I remain cautiously optimistic. For now though, at least it's nice that this flagship manifest already shows a semblance of improvement, if only superficially.
M426 has pulled out the east leg of the wye at CPF AY on CSXT's former Pan Am's Freight Mainline at PAR milepost 315.75 (measured from Mattawamkeag, ME) and milepost 35.75 (measured from Boston North Station on the Keolis/MBTA Fitchburg Line). They are in the process of doubling up their train in the Hill Yard in this view looking west off the Main Street overpass. Above and behind the power can be seen the surviving former B&M interlocking tower dating from 1928 that closed in 1980. And poking skyward to the right of the brick tower can be seen the wooden steeple of Saint Mary's Catholic Church whose parish was founded in 1858, thirteen years after the Fitchburg Railroad first reached town.
Ayer, Massachusetts
Friday June 10, 2022