M426 By Lowell Tower
Another wider take from this location as CSXT Selkirk to Rigby manifest M426 (formerly Pan Am Railways AYPO) with three old school AC4400CWs in the lead rolls beneath the Lowell Connector overpass headed east on Main 2 approaching CPF BY (short for Bleachery Yard) at about MP 298.5 on Pan Am's Freight Main.
Standing guard at left is the old Boston and Maine Lowell Tower which is much newer than some of its surviving brethren I've shown here before such as Ayer, East Deerfield and Johnsonville. Known as BO in B&M parlance, it opened in 1948 when CTC was installed on the New Hampshire Route and it replaced two older towers known as Hale Street and Bleachery. This tower was one of the last handful still in service finally closing in 1984 when control was transferred to North Billerica. Now property of the MBTA it survives an office for Keolis engineering department personnel.
To their right parked in No. 1 Turnout is MEC 345 a rebuilt GP40-2 originally blt. Nov. 1968 as a straight GP40 Penn Central 3224. The unit passed to Conrail and then was sold to Guilford around 1995 and I believe it was subsequently sold to GATX rebuilt and leased back around 2015. The Pan Am blue unit recently lost its rear number boards to some theives and they have been amusingly replaced with these red stickers....what a place!
Lowell, Massachusetts
Friday June 10, 2022
M426 By Lowell Tower
Another wider take from this location as CSXT Selkirk to Rigby manifest M426 (formerly Pan Am Railways AYPO) with three old school AC4400CWs in the lead rolls beneath the Lowell Connector overpass headed east on Main 2 approaching CPF BY (short for Bleachery Yard) at about MP 298.5 on Pan Am's Freight Main.
Standing guard at left is the old Boston and Maine Lowell Tower which is much newer than some of its surviving brethren I've shown here before such as Ayer, East Deerfield and Johnsonville. Known as BO in B&M parlance, it opened in 1948 when CTC was installed on the New Hampshire Route and it replaced two older towers known as Hale Street and Bleachery. This tower was one of the last handful still in service finally closing in 1984 when control was transferred to North Billerica. Now property of the MBTA it survives an office for Keolis engineering department personnel.
To their right parked in No. 1 Turnout is MEC 345 a rebuilt GP40-2 originally blt. Nov. 1968 as a straight GP40 Penn Central 3224. The unit passed to Conrail and then was sold to Guilford around 1995 and I believe it was subsequently sold to GATX rebuilt and leased back around 2015. The Pan Am blue unit recently lost its rear number boards to some theives and they have been amusingly replaced with these red stickers....what a place!
Lowell, Massachusetts
Friday June 10, 2022