Capturing History
The fans are out in force to capture what will soon be history as CSXT's ex Pan Am local BO-1 noses out toward Lowell Street on the South Reading Branch with MEC 517 leading five empty tank tank cars from the Rousselot plant and one spacer after making the trip out to deliver the final load. The plant is winding down operations and will be closing later this year after being in business in some form for 206 years and with rail service for 173 of those!
The conductor will activate the signals and then flag traffic as the train steps out through the middle of Peabody Square in front of the District Courthouse and beneath the 50 ft tall Soldiers and Sailors monument built in 1881 and inscribed with the 71 names of local residents who died in the Civil War. Prior to 2016 if you'd taken this same shot the monument would have been behind the train in an island in the middle of traffic at the center of the square. However in early 2016 a more than $3 million project to reconfigure the square led to it being moved 30 ft back to this new plaza in front of the courthouse that the train cuts right through. This truly unique and remarkable location will see what may very well be its final train ever two days later when the local returns one more time to retrieve the last empty and take it back to Boston ending an era.
Fortunately, there will be no lack of photos, and the memory of the last trains will live on in stills and videos for future generations of fans to marvel over what once.
Peabody, Massachusetts
Tuesday August 29, 2023
Capturing History
The fans are out in force to capture what will soon be history as CSXT's ex Pan Am local BO-1 noses out toward Lowell Street on the South Reading Branch with MEC 517 leading five empty tank tank cars from the Rousselot plant and one spacer after making the trip out to deliver the final load. The plant is winding down operations and will be closing later this year after being in business in some form for 206 years and with rail service for 173 of those!
The conductor will activate the signals and then flag traffic as the train steps out through the middle of Peabody Square in front of the District Courthouse and beneath the 50 ft tall Soldiers and Sailors monument built in 1881 and inscribed with the 71 names of local residents who died in the Civil War. Prior to 2016 if you'd taken this same shot the monument would have been behind the train in an island in the middle of traffic at the center of the square. However in early 2016 a more than $3 million project to reconfigure the square led to it being moved 30 ft back to this new plaza in front of the courthouse that the train cuts right through. This truly unique and remarkable location will see what may very well be its final train ever two days later when the local returns one more time to retrieve the last empty and take it back to Boston ending an era.
Fortunately, there will be no lack of photos, and the memory of the last trains will live on in stills and videos for future generations of fans to marvel over what once.
Peabody, Massachusetts
Tuesday August 29, 2023