Marching Up Intervale Hill
Here's another from this fun day out chasing the 470 Railroad Club special from Conway to Fabyans and back with 9 cars behind Boston and Maine F7s 4266 and 4268.
This spot was one of the most famous photo locations along the old Maine Central's Mountain Sub mainline because you could capture the entirety of a 100 car freight strung out as they climb Intervale Hill on a more than two mile long tangent. This is also a spot where you can include Mount Washington with the train and on those rare clear days unlike this one.
From just east of the Hill North Vale Lane crossing here at about MP 61.7 the top of the mountain is 16 miles away. Located in the Presidential Range Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288.2 ft and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The summit is probably most famous for having the highest wind speed ever recorded on earth (not associated with a tornado or tropical cyclone) of 231 mph recorded on April 12, 1934 by the observatory located there!
As for the Fs, both units are owned by the 470 Railroad Club and are original Boston and Maine locomotives wearing their as delivered EMD designed scheme. 4266 was built in Mar. 1949 and was acquired for preservation in 1981 off the Billerica deadline. Restored a couple years later, she has called North Conway home ever since and has been operational off and on for the past four decades.
4268 was built in Oct. 1949 and ran for the very first time in almost a half century just earlier this year. I'm not sure when her last run was, but I can find no photos of her in service after about July 1974. She languished for a decade behind the Billerica shops after being stripped of all major components including prime mover, main generator and traction motors. In 1986 she finally left Billerica by truck after being acquired by George Feuderer who displayed her in a field in East Swanzey, NH until acquired by the 470 Club and trucked to North Conway in October of 1991.
She received a cosmetic restoration in 1993 and had been prominently displayed at the Conway Scenic in the company of her operational sibling ever since. After years of planning, the club began restoration in earnest in 2018 with the full support of the railroad and its shop using ex New Hampshire Northcoast GP9 1751 (ex PRR) as a major parts donor for the four year long restoration project.
Addendum: thanks to Carl Byron for supplying the fascinating historical information below that I'd never read about before.
The 4268A was actually built in March, 1949 as Engineering Test Dept Locomotive #930. Used for high altitude component testing on the DRGW's Soldier Summit among other locations. It spent some of that summer masquerading as a CB&Q locomotive leading their passenger car display at the 1949 Chicago World's Fair. It was then was cleaned up, re-engined, and made into to a standard F7A and offered for sale at a slightly used demo price. The B&M bought it and it was renumbered and painted into the B&M livery and shipped east, so while the builders plate may well say 10/49 but it certainly had a prior interesting career.
Unincorporated Intervale
Carroll County, New Hampshire
Saturday October 28, 2023
Marching Up Intervale Hill
Here's another from this fun day out chasing the 470 Railroad Club special from Conway to Fabyans and back with 9 cars behind Boston and Maine F7s 4266 and 4268.
This spot was one of the most famous photo locations along the old Maine Central's Mountain Sub mainline because you could capture the entirety of a 100 car freight strung out as they climb Intervale Hill on a more than two mile long tangent. This is also a spot where you can include Mount Washington with the train and on those rare clear days unlike this one.
From just east of the Hill North Vale Lane crossing here at about MP 61.7 the top of the mountain is 16 miles away. Located in the Presidential Range Mount Washington is the highest peak in the Northeastern United States at 6,288.2 ft and the most topographically prominent mountain east of the Mississippi River. The summit is probably most famous for having the highest wind speed ever recorded on earth (not associated with a tornado or tropical cyclone) of 231 mph recorded on April 12, 1934 by the observatory located there!
As for the Fs, both units are owned by the 470 Railroad Club and are original Boston and Maine locomotives wearing their as delivered EMD designed scheme. 4266 was built in Mar. 1949 and was acquired for preservation in 1981 off the Billerica deadline. Restored a couple years later, she has called North Conway home ever since and has been operational off and on for the past four decades.
4268 was built in Oct. 1949 and ran for the very first time in almost a half century just earlier this year. I'm not sure when her last run was, but I can find no photos of her in service after about July 1974. She languished for a decade behind the Billerica shops after being stripped of all major components including prime mover, main generator and traction motors. In 1986 she finally left Billerica by truck after being acquired by George Feuderer who displayed her in a field in East Swanzey, NH until acquired by the 470 Club and trucked to North Conway in October of 1991.
She received a cosmetic restoration in 1993 and had been prominently displayed at the Conway Scenic in the company of her operational sibling ever since. After years of planning, the club began restoration in earnest in 2018 with the full support of the railroad and its shop using ex New Hampshire Northcoast GP9 1751 (ex PRR) as a major parts donor for the four year long restoration project.
Addendum: thanks to Carl Byron for supplying the fascinating historical information below that I'd never read about before.
The 4268A was actually built in March, 1949 as Engineering Test Dept Locomotive #930. Used for high altitude component testing on the DRGW's Soldier Summit among other locations. It spent some of that summer masquerading as a CB&Q locomotive leading their passenger car display at the 1949 Chicago World's Fair. It was then was cleaned up, re-engined, and made into to a standard F7A and offered for sale at a slightly used demo price. The B&M bought it and it was renumbered and painted into the B&M livery and shipped east, so while the builders plate may well say 10/49 but it certainly had a prior interesting career.
Unincorporated Intervale
Carroll County, New Hampshire
Saturday October 28, 2023