Parked On Poplar
After a hiatus of nearly four years a revenue passenger train returned to the end of the line in downtown Newport Rhode Island. The Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special made a round trip over the entire thirteen mile length of the Newport Secondary.
The train consisted of two GE centercabs, Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad numbers 14 and 66.
The former still dressed in yellow paint is a GE 80 tonner built in July 1941 as the 5th of the model off the production line. Originally numbered GE 14 it worked at the company's Schenectady plant until being sold and rebuilt in the late 1980s to serve at Northeast Utilities' West Springfield power plant. However, after coal and oil fired units 1 and 2 were shut down in 1999 the locomotive had no purpose. It sat on site there for more than two decades until the NNBR purchased it in 2023 and shipped it to Fall River on a flat car and then had it trucked over to the island and set back on the rails and put back into service.
The latter is freshly repainted into the very attractive paint scheme featuring colors that pay homage to the state of Rhode Island and the omnipresent sea. It wears a newly applied logo for the Grand Bellevue Dinner Train for which it is the regular power. A GE 65-tonner, it was built in 1943 and was most recently numbered USN 65-00566 where it served with a sister unit at the Portsmouth Navy Yard until being replaced with a trackmobile several years ago. In 2024 she and sister unit USN 65-00308, two years her junior, were purchased by Eric Moffett and turcked to Rhode Island with the the 65-00308 being assigned to the Seaview Railroad freight operations at Quonset Business Park.
The smart little GE is seen here momentarily blocking the Poplar Street crossing as the train has shoved right to end of track at MP 0 beside America's Cup Avenue so all the Mass Bay mileage collectors could get every inch! Historically end of track would have been about MP 30 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline.
To see historic photos of this line and the railroad in Newport check out Edward Ozog's fabulous site:
sites.google.com/site/rhodeislandrailroads/home/east-prov...
Newport, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025
Parked On Poplar
After a hiatus of nearly four years a revenue passenger train returned to the end of the line in downtown Newport Rhode Island. The Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special made a round trip over the entire thirteen mile length of the Newport Secondary.
The train consisted of two GE centercabs, Newport and Narragansett Bay Railroad numbers 14 and 66.
The former still dressed in yellow paint is a GE 80 tonner built in July 1941 as the 5th of the model off the production line. Originally numbered GE 14 it worked at the company's Schenectady plant until being sold and rebuilt in the late 1980s to serve at Northeast Utilities' West Springfield power plant. However, after coal and oil fired units 1 and 2 were shut down in 1999 the locomotive had no purpose. It sat on site there for more than two decades until the NNBR purchased it in 2023 and shipped it to Fall River on a flat car and then had it trucked over to the island and set back on the rails and put back into service.
The latter is freshly repainted into the very attractive paint scheme featuring colors that pay homage to the state of Rhode Island and the omnipresent sea. It wears a newly applied logo for the Grand Bellevue Dinner Train for which it is the regular power. A GE 65-tonner, it was built in 1943 and was most recently numbered USN 65-00566 where it served with a sister unit at the Portsmouth Navy Yard until being replaced with a trackmobile several years ago. In 2024 she and sister unit USN 65-00308, two years her junior, were purchased by Eric Moffett and turcked to Rhode Island with the the 65-00308 being assigned to the Seaview Railroad freight operations at Quonset Business Park.
The smart little GE is seen here momentarily blocking the Poplar Street crossing as the train has shoved right to end of track at MP 0 beside America's Cup Avenue so all the Mass Bay mileage collectors could get every inch! Historically end of track would have been about MP 30 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline.
To see historic photos of this line and the railroad in Newport check out Edward Ozog's fabulous site:
sites.google.com/site/rhodeislandrailroads/home/east-prov...
Newport, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025