Photo of the Week: 12/24/2010

It's Friday, which means it is time for another photo of the week! Last week's photo was on Saturday, but from now on the weekly photo will be posted on Friday.

Today is Christmas Eve, so I chose a winter themed photo for this week. It was taken in February 2009, when I was shooting on film. Due to my low-quality scanner, the photo quality may not be that great.

Here is this week's photo:

As stated before, this photo was taken in February 2009 at the end of my street. A friend of mine knew that Pan Am was running a plow extra on the line out of Nashua, and gave me a heads-up. I walked down to the end of my street with my camera and waited, and sure enough the train came along. The lead plow is MEC 80, a product of Russel that served Maine Central until the Guilford buyout, and now wears Pan Am blue. Following the plow is a Guilford-painted GP40, followed by B&M 3738, another Russel product still in its B&M blue livery. The 3738 has been assigned to Nashua since it was built, and the words "Nashua Yard" are stenciled on one side of the plow.

Both these plows are single-track plows. The wedge is designed so it throws snow in both directions. On a double track plow, the point of the wedge is all the way on the left side of the plow, so all the snow gets thrown to the right. Double track plows can be used to plow single track lines without a problem, but using a single track plow on a double track line would push snow on the second track. The main line out of Nashua is single track with some passing sidings, but all the sidings are no longer active so Pan Am uses the single track plows.