22-10-01 PHOTOS: Boston First Class

Autumn is a great time to visit New Englande and although the last few years saw some disruptions to my annual Labor Day-ish trip to New Hampshire, I managed to make other arrangements. 2022 would be no different as I managed to wrangle a group of friends to take Acela from Washington to Boston to visit another group of friends. Unfortunately, apart from the NEC trip up and back, I had a fairly limited ability to do rail activities during the trip itself. Therefore I am mixing in some additional Baltimore area content from immediately before the Boston run ( mirror ).

Since I more frequently take Amtrak between BWI and Philly I'll start off with some typical Amtrak and MARC action at BWI with ACS-86 #637, cab car #8049, MP36PH-3C #17 and Acela Express power cars #2027 and #2033.

Next up was a trip to downtown Baltimore to take in an O's game. This would be my first time riding one of the rehabilitated Baltimore Light Rail LRV's in the form of #5012 seen here at North Linthicum station. The interior looked pretty much the same, but I think they installed new seats.

Here we see LRV #5009 at Camden Yards.

#5032 at Hamburg. The new Maryland teamed paint job is certainly nice.

Ravens wrapped LRV #5001 at the Convention Center station.

Down in Silver Spring, the Purple Line beam is giving the old JFK AirTrain a run for its money. It will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.

48 hours in advance of my scheduled Boston trip I was able to secure Acela first class upgrades for myself and traveling companions. Since our desired Acela departure did not stop at BWI, we first traveled to Washington Union Station via MARC to create an end-to-end NEC ride. Here is MARC MP36PH-3C #30 and MARC cab cars #7857 and #7758 at Union Station.

Here is Acela Express cab car #2011 on Track 21 although my train was on the adjacent track #20 with power car #2037 which my friend group and baggage situation did not allow me the time to photograph until I got to New York Penn Station where it posed next to P32AC-DM #717.

The first class menu wasn't the best I had, but it did have a tasty vegetarian dish. However after most of the ritzy business travelers got off in NYC, my party got to talking with the attendants and they showered us with drinks into Boston.

The logistics of getting picked up in Boston again nixed the opportunity for photos and I was brought up to Manchester, NH. CTC Signaling on the former Boston and Maine Northern Route Main Line used to extend to the north end of Manchester Yard, but it was decommissioned north of Nashua in the mid-2010's and by 2022 CPN-28 had been converted into low income housing.

At least the old searchlight signals were still on site.

Again, due to the constraints of the travel party, I was limited to just a few hours on a rainy Saturday morning to get some B&M signaling photos along the former Guilford Freight Main Line between Lowell and Andover Jct including CPF-297 and the milepost 294 and 293 automatic signals.

For the last day of the trip my party transferred to a new location south of the city via the Bill Buckner Bridge and the Big Dig Tunnel.

Back in the Boston Metropolitan lounge for the return trip. The selection of snacks was on point.

Because we can't have nice things Boston is building a new hotel over the open-air part of the South Station platforms and sacrificing a car length of capacity for the privilege.

Boarding our southbound Acela on track #6 with power car #2035 next to MBTA Rotem Cab Car #1824.

Ultimate AX Power Car #2039 was at the car end with #2028 on Track #8.

Just before departure #2039 suffered a cab signal or ACSES failure and after a delay the decision was made to spin the trainset on the Dorchester loop. While this was going on a northbound Regional arrived with ACS-86 #600 on track #7, adjacent to AX power car #2007.

Over on Track #10 and #11 were MBTA Rotem cab cars #1817 and #1814 loading passengers for upcoming departures.

After #600 backed out the Regional train to the yard, problem child #2039 returned in its place on track #7. Overall delay was about 55 minutes.

For the return trip I only had one available upgrade so I split the first class experience with another person from the group. I took the Boston to NY segment, where he then slid into the same seat to Washington, DC.

Well, after all that train drinking I'll need a few days to recover before working on my next post covering another trip to the Ohio River Valley.