Hoosic Tunnel Pics.

[JCitron]

As promised, here are some pics of our trip:

The Central Shaft Memorial. This commemorates the 13 tunnel workers who lost their lives when the central shaft caught fire and collapsed on them during the construction. There bodies were never found, however, there are rumors of ghosts lurking the nearly 5 mile tunnel. Seriously, they fell over 900 feet to their deaths at the bottom in the tunnel its self.



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The Central Shaft blower building and fans. This was put in during the early 1900s and is still in operation today. The power lines feeding the equipment are the same wooden poles from the time period. In the past they connected to a power plant fed by the Deerfield River, today the power is supplied off the mains by National Grid.





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Just across the bridge from the East Portal, the tracks go from two tracks with a middle siding to single for the tunnel. You can see the shockingly horrific shape the mainline track is in. It's hard to believe this was once a double track mainline with a 6-track holding yard, and a branch line off to the left.




Here's a historic shot of the same area...



Where that steam locomotive is about where the switch is today. The line has been single-tracked most of the distance from East Deerfield yard causing lots of congestion even with the 8 trains per day that PAR runs today. In the past it was double-tracked all the way from East Deerfield to Mechanicsville and there was never issues.

More below.

 

[JCitron]

More Pics...

On a better day during the week, we took a trip back east to East Deerfield and Greenfield, MA to get a lay of the land down there. In this vicinity, the railroad has the largest yard on their system outside of North Maine Junction and Rigby, Maine. This line is at the junction of the former Connecticut River mainline up to Berlin, New Hampshire and the east-west former Fitchburg Division of the B&M which runs from Boston to Mechanicsville, NY and is essentially the original mainline west.

It's hard to believe that this was once all double-track and today the railroad, as mentioned before, is facing congestion so bad there are outlawed trains along the line. Recently, with the help of Norfolk Southern, PAR was able to bring the track speeds up from the disgusting 5-10 mph to 25 on many sections. Yes, that's what I said 5-10 mph! There were so many slow orders, that the trains were outlawing before they'd make it out to North Adams! Even now this is a paltry speed, according to the security guard we spoke to. He worked before as a freight conductor on the same line and said the B&M ran freights up to 50 mph on some sections. It's sad when a company does this... Anyway here's the pictures.

Looking north at the Greenfield station site, we see the former mainline peeling off west to the left. This was once a 3-track mainline through here with coaching yards and sidings. On the right side of this site, not shown, is a two-track line which is the line to Berlin, New Hampshire. Our state is in the process of bringing commuter train service back to the region and is rebuilding this line up to North Hampton, MA for the Springfield to North Hampton commuter line. Eventually they hope to return the Montrealer to this line, where it ran previously as well as the Vermonter, which now uses the New England Central (nee Central Vermont) via Springfield by way of a reverse move at Palmer because there's no wye there. Both sides were triple-tracked mainline which of course is long gone.



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A bit before we visited Greenfield, which is just outside of East Deerfield Yard, we saw this coming in and stopping at the former switch tower. Amtrak was hired to inspect the tracks for the upcoming passenger service mentioned above.



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The yard switcher. An old GP-9 I believe. This may have come off of either the MEC or B&M. It's hard to tell with the smathering of Guilford all over the unit.



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A pile of scrap track bits, which are so common here in the yard...



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The bridge over the Deerfield river. The bridge is actually much longer than this photo makes it appear. To the right was the former Turner's Falls branch which came up sometime in the 1980s. We inquired about taking a drive out there and were told there's nothing to see, not even the old engine house or mills which once stood at the end of the branch.

Not shown to the left, just before that Type 08 signal on the left, is the connecting track from the north-south river line to the east-west mainline. From what we were told, this is quite a grade which sees frequent service as trains are exchanged between the Springfield area and the east-west Boston to Mechanicsville line.



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A view of the yard looking towards the engine facilities, or what's left of them.



More to follow below.

 

[JCitron]

More pics as promised...

These here are all of Deerfield Yard. The yard is quite long, and the access to it is quite difficult. The PAR police/security are all over the place and ensure that no one can even get within 2 inches of the ROW. We were smart and stayed out of the way, although were met with very suspicious eyes as we took pictures. On our way back to the car, we met the security guard sitting in the car and I struck up a conversation with him, which of course with mention of our Hoosic Tunnel project made his eyes light up and his old war stories started... He was actually helpful in explaining the past operations in the yard. His grandfather, father, and his uncle worked for the former Boston and Maine, and he remembered the heydays of the line and the yard. This was, it's hard to believe now, a double track mainline through the middle with about 21 tracks for incoming and outgoing freight divided evenly on both sides. On the right side, now buried in the trees, is the site of a former icing house. The switch tower shown here controlled the switches for all the yard tracks, which were all mechanical, as well as the interlocking at the bridge junction. Today he says they are all hand-throws and many of the mechanical switches on the mainline are hand thrown anyway because they don't work properly!



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Now take a good look at the tracks. Do you notice something wrong with the switches? After seeing this, I wouldn't worry about crooked splines on my yard tracks which I fastidiously attempt to straighten and work the kinks out of.



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Snow plows... all oiled (Yeah in our wildest dreams!) and all set for the upcoming New England winter which really hits hard in Western Mass.

 

[JCitron]

And finally the last batch...

The shops at East Deerfield Yard.



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An old rusty grain elevator located near the yard. There are other wooden ones that dot the line in various locations. Mike and I plan on getting more pictures of these before they disappear. This one is becoming some kind of artsy center according to a nearby sign. You can still see the rusty track leading up to it.



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The East Portal. This was once double tracked and electrified. The wires came down in 1944, and single-tracked in the 1950s. There were actually two entrances. The original is buried in the hillside to the left and is actually an aborted attempt at the tunnel. The present tunnel came about because they engineers and crew couldn't drill into the mountainside. The schist and clay collapsed, causing the drill to get stuck. So to proceed with the project, the moved the right and tried again. It's hard to believe they used sticks, rope, and light beacons, which were located on the mountain top to guide the crew. They met in the middle and were off only a few inches! What's amazing is they did this without computers, lasers. The drilling machines we use today were developed during this time period, and the engineers perfected the process during this tunnel's construction. Nitroglycerine was also used for the first time to break through the very hard quartzite and granite that makes up most of the hard part of the mountain.



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Back in North Adams...

A view taken in the spring from the State Street overpass looking back towards the West Portal, and the formidable mountain range that blocked east-west transportation until the railroad engineers were finally able to break through in 1877. Just over the bridge, you can see the remains of the great freight yard that once filled this location.

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A historic overhead view of the bridge, yard, and the "Freight Yard" area with the freight house, coal company, and other buildings. You can see the trolley tracks in the streets and the long gone engine houses, station and other structures that were sadly removed during urban renewal projects. The big mill in the upper left corner is the former Allen Printworks and textile factory. After that firm closed, Sprague Electric opened up a plant there that lasted until the 1980s. Today, MOCA is located in the mills. This is the Massachusetts Organization of Contemporary Art where they value placing hubcaps on oil tanks and hanging scrap metal from chimneys over preserving history and heritage.



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A day after our trip back east, we spent some time around North Adams, hoping to catch some non-existent train action, and meet with the museum folks. However, neither paid off. From what we were told, PAR runs 8 trains a day, but mostly at night. We did catch sight of two stopped container trains and a couple of locals. On this particular day, however, the empty yard was host to the Amtrak critter, which we still don't know why it was out this way. We think it may have been heading back to Albany, but our contacts at the museum didn't know either. This was particularly interesting because the high-rail truck was trying to activate the signal where the track goes back to single track for the Little Tunnel. He rode back and forth and then the MOW crew played with a key or relay. You can see them doing stuff, then the high-railer took the siding towards the junk company, and tried again. Eventually he and the Amtrak critter proceeded slowly through the red signal anyway to get on with the trip while the guys on the other side of the bridge continued to fiddle with the equipment.

 

[Dinorius_Redundicus]

Please do take more photos of that grain elevator, and associated structures, from as many sides as you can before it goes. I'm sure they will provide material for later use by some content creator or other.

 

[oknotsen]

Thanks for sharing these pictures, John!

 

[flusi737]

Thanks for sharing these pictures, John!

second that!! VERY nice pictures John! They gave me some ideas for new fictional track layouts

 

[SharkNose]

I toyed with this area in MSTS probably 10 or more years ago. I got the tunnel and track created but got no further. Thanks for the photos! Its nice to see the real thing as opposed to poring over topo maps and grainy orthoimagery.

Andrew

 

[matruck]

Thanks for sharing these pic's John, I've always been meaning to make one of those Turbine Vent set ups in your second pic also used in the mining sector. Thanks again.
Cheers Mick.

 

[steamboateng]

I like your presentation. John;.............quite descriptive and to the point. Most of the pix came out better than I expected, and the New England autumn foliage adds a little flair.......
For any who are interested; we have modeled all these areas in TransDEM, and the results are quite impressive. Thanks again, Dr. Z!

 

[JCitron]

I'm glad you all enjoyed our pictures. I agree! Seeing this area for real gives one a sense of how everything fits together. Playing with TransDEM, looking at photos, and trying to picture the lay of the land doesn't do justice. Even Google Earth Street View doesn't quite work. Now if we could do this for any route we wish to build...

When I was out this way last December, it was so cold and snowy we barely got around even with my Jeep! We met at the museum and went around a tiny bit, but didn't dare take the mountain roads. The road down to the East Portal, which I plan to visit again in the spring, is a 9-1/2 percent grade! It doesn't do much twisting either except at the very bottom!

One place we didn't get any pictures of and I wish we had, is Hoosac. This was once the beginning of the Catenary and there was a siding and a two-track main there. Today the station is gone and there's no sign of it at all. The track is still double-track here but ends shortly past the station to the east. There's a road leading to the station site which serves as a driveway for some residents. The bridge that crosses the Deerfield River here is an old Warren Truss and very much the same construction as a bridge that was recently removed near my house. The bridge was built in 1911 and appears to have last been painted or maintained about 1940! The boards moved under foot, making for a rather disturbing walk across a bridge, which appears to carry cars and trucks from those houses since there is no other way to them!

So now I can't wait for springtime when we can journey west again for more pictures. I only wish we were a bit close. The 2-1/2 hour drive is a bit far for a day trip when you're going to do more driving around when you get there.

The photos did come out great, Mike. Great camera and photography.

John

 

[steamboateng]

John, I have a bunch of pix of the Hoosac Staion area taken a in the Summer of 2013. I will send them to you. you do such nice presentaions, you can do the commentary.
General info: all pix were taken with a 6 year old Olympus Camedia C-8080 Wide Zoom (7.1 -35.6 mm lens). Focus and lighting was set to automatic mode. No cell phones or selfies for this old Trainzer!

 

[JCitron]

John, I have a bunch of pix of the Hoosac Staion area taken a in the Summer of 2013. I will send them to you. you do such nice presentaions, you can do the commentary.
General info: all pix were taken with a 6 year old Olympus Camedia C-8080 Wide Zoom (7.1 -35.6 mm lens). Focus and lighting was set to automatic mode. No cell phones or selfies for this old Trainzer!

Thank you, Mike. This will be awesome.

Take a look here... I also sent you the link in your email.

https://www.google.com/maps/@42.949...ata=!3m4!1e1!3m2!1sgYfCQ5tGosPGjOmOFbKh9w!2e0

Station building look familiar...? Similar to Hoosic, except up in Eagle Bridge.

John

 

[steamboateng]

Yes John, I noticed it in Falco's pix I believe we drove right by that puppy, just as rain started to come down, otherwise we would have stopped to do some snaps. I'll check my mail.

 

[Falcus]

See? Aren't Google Maps great? The funny thing, is that where Google Does satellite passes so often, its not uncommon for the satellite to grab a string of cars, and then when the car goes by to do the Street view, the string will still be there..... I was trying to see if a String of Cars I saw in Satellite was there in street view when I stumbled on that station. Apparently the train I saw on the Satellite photo was moving though because it wasn't there when the car drove past. However, one of the things I'll point out, is that sometimes you can see different things all together if you change orientation of the picture, because each orientation is a pic from a different time. I have a pic of one of UP's E-9s up here in Seattle near Interbay's Sanding Towers, but you can only see it when you change the orientation of the Map AWAY from North @ Top. No idea what it was doing there, but its a great shot.

I've spent hours in Google Maps looking at things and tracking things down. Its an incredible tool. Sometimes I'll even see things in G-Maps that I didn't or couldn't see when I went there myself..... The Street Level views are where the money shots are at, almost every time though.

The Guilford GP-9 is Marked for MEC on the cab btw, though IDK if that has any bearing on whether it was originally B&M or MEC though.

@Steamboat
Ill respond to your reply to me in the other thread here.
Right now, the only thing Im doing in Trainz really is Route Building. I'm currently in an Engineering Program in College, and we start Auto-Cad next quarter, with Solid Works about 3 quarters or so from now. I expect when I'm done with this to be alot more comfortable tackling 3DS max again and trying my hand at content creation besides plinking down assets on Grid, but I'm not there yet. That said, any help I can provide, whether its help tackling the Surveyor, messing with Google Maps, or just being another set of eyes, I don't mind. JCitron mentioned that you're the one mostly doing the Route Creation. I would leave it to the pair of you to request anything you think I can help with. I'm unfamiliar with that specific area, but I'm fairly good with Rail History and what not (Placement of things and what not. Railroads had a pretty unanimous sense of uniformity when it came to putting things in places where they made sense. Of course, that said, the further back you go time wise, the bigger the surprises are because its hard to imagine exactly what life was like back then and what they did to counter their own problems).

Whether you have any use for my skills or not, I very much hope this project is able to accomplish everything you're setting out to do.

Good Luck,
Falcus

 

[TheParot67]

MEC 377 is actually a GP-40.
Best of luck on your project the photos and scenery look absolutely beautiful and it is nice to learn that yet another passenger service may be revived.