Newport Beach Club
Continuing with this relaxing little chase here's another from my time out following the Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special which 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 and the five car regular dinner train consist.
Leading the way is the former still dressed in yellow paint which 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.
Immediately behind her is the generator car, former USAX 89657 was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1952 for the US Army as a kitchen car and then later served Amtrak as a baggage car.
The train is approaching the Pheasant Drive crossing as it passes the luxury private Newport Beach Club community. This is about MP 9.9 which would have been about MP 20.1 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline back in PC and early CR days. Rising above the train can be seen the rather jarring 22 story Carnegie Tower which opened in 2009, and at 242 ft it is far taller than any other structure anywhere on the island. It is built exactly on the footprint of the former Kaiser Aluminum plant's extrusion tower where coated aluminum wire was produced and hence fell under the zoning variance for the former manufacturing facility.
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025
Newport Beach Club
Continuing with this relaxing little chase here's another from my time out following the Mass Bay RRE's Narragansett Bay Special which 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 and the five car regular dinner train consist.
Leading the way is the former still dressed in yellow paint which 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.
Immediately behind her is the generator car, former USAX 89657 was built by St. Louis Car Company in 1952 for the US Army as a kitchen car and then later served Amtrak as a baggage car.
The train is approaching the Pheasant Drive crossing as it passes the luxury private Newport Beach Club community. This is about MP 9.9 which would have been about MP 20.1 as measured from Myricks and the junction with the New Bedford mainline back in PC and early CR days. Rising above the train can be seen the rather jarring 22 story Carnegie Tower which opened in 2009, and at 242 ft it is far taller than any other structure anywhere on the island. It is built exactly on the footprint of the former Kaiser Aluminum plant's extrusion tower where coated aluminum wire was produced and hence fell under the zoning variance for the former manufacturing facility.
Portsmouth, Rhode Island
Saturday May 17, 2025