In Part Two of my 2021 Northbound Vermonter trip to White River Junction, I continue on from where Part 1 left off at the Springfield Union Station in Springfield, MA. In my previous travels on the Vermonter to the station in Amherst, MA, the train would continue east on the former Conrail Boston Line to the town of Palmer, then reverse direction up the New England Central's unsignaled main line. This required the Vermonter to be equipped either with a cab car or a second engine to reverse direction. When the more direct Connecticut River route was reopened, this detour and direction reversal was eliminated. Both the new and old routings converge at Brattleboro and this part will continue on to cover the route up to White River Jct and the station complex there. Once again the full gallery of photos can be found here ( mirror ).
Currently the schedule has both the Northbound and Southbound Vermonters meet at Springfield and today was no exception as Amtrak P42DC #121 pulls Train 55 out from the adjacent high level platform track #6.
The only other train in the station was a three car Amtrak Springfield Shuttle trainset with P42DC #124 and Metroliner Cab Car #9633. Note the US&S N-2 dwarf signal, likely the only surviving signal from before Amtrak's mid-2000's replacement project.
The Union in Springfield Union Station comes from the meeting of the New York, New Haven and Hartford, Boston and Albany (NY Central) and Boston and Maine. A recent renovation project reopened the Union Station train hall and concourse, however it came at the cost of the period freight house and interlocking tower to make way for a bus depot. Some of the station platform infrastructure and canopies are still under renovation, especially Boston Line tracks 1 and 2 which see the daily passage of the Lake Shore Limited Boston section.
Amtrak P42DC #113 at the front of my Vermonter Train 56 and the new high level Platform C.
Before the re-route, the Vermonter would exit out the east end of the station tracks and enter the Boston Line at CP-97. To reach the Connecticut River Main Line, the Vermonter and Valley Flyer trains still need to perform a short reverse move back through SPRING and SWEENEY interlockings to cross the Boston Line diamonds and enter former Boston and Maine territory.
Every year in January or February I head to the New York Capitol Region for a ski trip and 2018 was no different. However after over a decade of trips I am starting to run out of things to visit and this year the best I could come up with was a repeat trip to the Springfield Armoury stopping off at the Boston Line's CP-187 along the way. I also took Amtrak's Empire Service up and back so there are a bunch of photos from that as well.
You can find the complete set of photos from this trip here.
To start things off, my Amtrak Regional train was delayed for about an hour due to the Portal bridge getting stuck for s test opening. Not sure whose brilliant idea it was to open a somewhat finicky bridge for a test during working hours, but I used the opportunity to get this photo of HUDSON tower, which closed around 2005. Note the yellow pentagonal sign which marks a mileage change dating to the PRR days when the Main Line, New York to Philadelphia, ran to Jersey City with the bit to Penn Station being a "branch". Mileposts west of HUDSON are still measured to Jersey City even though the line is now solely operated by PATH.
Although I had previously recorded multiple videos in the forward direction, I still used my GoPro on the rear window of my Empire train to record video between the MNRR Division Post at DV interlocking and Yonkers and then Yonders and where I remembered to turn off the video north of Croton-Harmon.
Using a DSLR from the back of the Empire Service train I got some reasonable photos of some of the surviving NY Central automatic block signal bridges north of Poughkeepsie.
CP-187 is where the old Boston and Albany line to Albany diverges from the Selkirk Branch, which was constructed in the late 1920's as part of the Central's Albany improvements. With little reason for freight trains to descend into and ascend from the Hudson valley, the old B&A main line eventually became a passenger only route and after 1968, the Penn Central illegally removed the track on what had become known as the Post Road Branch, forcing Amtrak trains to/from Boston to utilize a time consuming detour with a long backup move. The Penn Central was eventually forced to re-install the 12 miles of track between CP-187 and Albany and today it only sees the daily round trip of Amtrak's Lake Shore limited. Because of the light loading, the 80mph Post Road retains its old school jointed rail, as evidenced in the photo below.
Amtrak P42DC #43 at the head of a 2 car inland shuttle train at Springfield Union Station.
Amtrak Metroliner Cab Car #9635 at the other end of the same shuttle trainset.
After being closed for 4 or so decades, the Springfield Union Station has been renovated and re-opened, although at the time of my visit the track level Amshack was still being used for rail passengers. This will become the eventual terminus for the New Haven/Hartford commuter rail service. Unfortunately the renovation resulted in the demolition of the attached express handling wing of the station as well as Tower 96 :-(
I'm going to mix things up and throw up some classic photos of a trip I took through Springfield, MA back in 2003. This was part of a larger MBTA trip I was taking and involved a return trip to Middletown, CT via the Amtrak Inland Route, as opposed to the Shore Line connecting to an inland shuttle. I caught the early morning inland Regional train (I think it was #142) and then layed over for a headway at Springfield Union Station in order to take some pictures of the terminal complex.
Unfortunately I wasn't able to repeat the trip and just this past year a redevelopment project demolished much of the old Union Station including the classic B&A interlocking tower. You can find all the photos here.
We begin with a still new Acela Express power car #2003 waiting for its departure at South Station.
On and adjacent track was MTBA bi-level K-cab car #1717.
Former Conrail fainted C40-8W #7335 somewhere around Worcester.
The full length inland route Regional train was unable to fully platform
at Springfield Union Station with the two P42 engines and three cars
hanging out in SPRING interlocking.
Amtrak Phase IV heritage painted P42 #105 sitting on one of the Springfield station tracks.
B&A Tower 96 with most of its copper roof and fittings still intact.
Excluding this structure from the redevelopment plan was a colossal
failure of imagination. A similar tower at Cincinnati's Union Station
was turned into museum space.
Hosing down Metroliner Cab Car #9640.
LMS C40-8W #7924 blasting westbound on B&A Main Track #2 with a merchandise freight. LMS stood for Locomotive Management Service and was a joint venture by Conrail and GE to operate a lease fleet of C40-8W locomotives although they were essentially normal Conrail power.
