Encountering a relic

A slurry train led by Pan Am #621 pulls slowly into E. Deerfield.

On August 30th, following a complete waste of a day spent on the B&A, Tom and I headed up to E. Deerfield early enough to catch this loaded slurry train heading east into E. Deerfield with #621, on of only 2 EMD SD26’s that Pan Am operates, on the point.

Pan Am #621, a rather unhappy #330 and #379 head towards the E. Deerfield shops.

Leaving the train sitting on the passing siding, the power pulled onto the shop track so that maintenance personnel could take a look at GP40 #330 which had a problem that I don’t think we ever identified, but was apparent due to the thick clouds of noxious blue smoke it was belching out.

An empty Mt. Tom coal extra enters the E. Deerfield yard.

After the slurry train came in, an empty Mt. Tom coal extra arrived as well, headed back east with GE B39-8E #3907 leading. Not long after this we drove over to NECR in Montague to try and catch the southbound Vermonter (we missed it… as usual), after which we returned to the yard, only to hear about a derailment in the yard. Figuring that the action was pretty much over, we packed up and headed home.

Chris