Eastern Railroad Discussion > Providence & Worcester Coal Trains redux

P&W is running coal trains from New Haven to Gardiner, MA. GRS picks them up and takes them to Mt Tom on the Conn River line. Here's some proof:

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?PWGardner1.jpg:byrail::byrail%3A2%3AProvidence_&_Worcester

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?PWGRS.jpg:byrail::byrail%3A2%3AProvidence_&_Worcester

http://photos.nerail.org/showpic/?PW2010N.jpg:byrail::byrail%3A2%3AProvidence_&_Worcester

My question was: Does anyone know the schedule for these trains?

And on a side note: What is the other P&W in the Pittsburgh area?

Great shots, I like the middle one with both roads side by side. Way to go.

The Pittsburgh-area P&W is the "P&W Subdivision" of CSX. It is the old B&O main line between New Castle and Pittsburgh, long relegated to secondary status after B&O obtained trackage rights over the Pittsburgh & Lake Erie (now a CSX property itself).

OK, once again nice and s-l-o-w-l-y. Where does this Providence and Worcester coal train come from? - i.e. how does it get into New Haven and what route does it follow from New Haven CT. to Gardner, Mass. Take me step by step. Does this train originate in New Haven (Is it unloaded from ships at the harbor, maybe?) I find this whole thing very puzzling - what am I missing here? To go from New Haven to Gardner it must travel ar least part of the way over Amtrak territory, wouldn't it?

The coal is imported into the New Haven harbor. The P&W routing to Gardner uses the Amtrak Northeast Corridor between the Belle Dock Lead in New Haven and Groton Junction, Connecticut. The train then follows the P&W's Norwich & Worcester line to Worcester and the former B&M Gardner branch to Gardner, MA. From there it operates via East Deerfield, MA on the Guilford (B&M) Fitchburg Main and then down the Conn River Line to Mount Tom.

Thanks Toledopatch - New Haven is where I hired out, and Belle Dock is familiar territory but this whole concept of loading coal trains there for another destination is a bit different. You'd think it would be more efficient to load at the mines and run straight to the power plants like they did it originally. Occasionally we would get a UMT from Selkirk NY to Springfield, Mass. destined for Mt.Tom if they didn't go over the B&M from Rotterdam Jct. NY.

Live and learn, I guess. Thanx again.

What Toledopatch left out is that the coal to New Haven is African.

For some reason, Mt Tom is trying this as an 'experiment.'

...schedule???

African coal, eh? Interesting concept. If they are loading coal at NH harbor I would imagine there is no firm schedule for departure of these trains, given the variables of loading/unloading trains. By the way, I can't imagine Amtrak wants anything to do with them during the daylight (passenger) hours. And how many trainsets are in use? How many cars per train? I wouldn't think they would be running very often. The whole thing sounds a little "shaky".

Nothing I have seen on the P&W Email list I subscribe to indicates a reliable schedule for these trains -- they run "as required."

And as long as they comply with the daytime NEC speed limit for freight, 30 mph, Amtrak can't restrict them to nighttime operation. P&W has certainly run stone trains of comparable weight over NEC trackage during daylight hours.

Mt Tom still gets domestic coal via NS, D&H as well. The train in photo ran several weeks ago, and there has been at least one NS train to Mt Tom since then.

cpf354 wrote:
>
> Mt Tom still gets domestic coal via NS, D&H as well. The train
> in photo ran several weeks ago, and there has been at least one
> NS train to Mt Tom since then.

Right. I think the African coal is being 'mixed' with domestic. I recall reading this somewhere when this started.