Railfanning in White River Junction, VT

I had been to White River Junction before as a kid, but not recently.  About two weeks ago, I was just passing through, but I had my camera on me, so I decided to stop at the station and see if anything was going on.  White River Junction was once one of New England's busiest interchange points, and today it is still a fairly busy place.  I would not call it a "hot spot," but if you go there to watch trains go by you will probably not be disappointed.  At one time, four railroad lines met there.  One line went south along the Connecticut River, through Palmer, MA.  One went southeast through Concord, NH to Boston.  One went north along the Connecticut River to Newport, VT, where it turned towards Montreal.  One went northwest across Vermont on a more direct route to Montreal.  Today, the line through NH only goes across the river to Lebanon, where it serves a few local industries, the rest of the line is a trail.  It is operated by the Concord & Claremont Railroad.  The other three lines are all still there.  The line to Newport is operated as a branch line serving local industries.  The Washington County Railroad, a subsidiary of the Vermont Rail System, operates that line.  The other two lines are operated by the New England Central Railroad, which was recently brought under the Genesee & Wyoming umbrella.  Amtrak's Vermonter operates on the NECR tracks to St. Albans, not far from the Canadian border.

I showed up at 11:00 and a crowd was gathered on the Amtrak platform.  Three SD40-2s were doing some yard switching, and kept showing up at the station and then backing into the yard again.  You can't see the yard from the station because it is around a curve and the trees block your view, but it is close enough that you can see the train as it switches the yard.  The lead engine was an SD40T-2, also known as a tunnel motor, and was painted in the Genesee & Wyoming colors.  The second engine was a patch job from Union Pacific, lettered for Connecticut Southern, and the third engine was also a patch job but for NECR, and it was an SD40-2 in an SD45 carbody.

NECR 3317, an SD40T-2 recently repainted in Genesee & Wyoming colors, leads two other SD40-2s switching the yard.  There is a crowd gathered for the southbound Amtrak train, scheduled to arrive shortly.

NECR 2680 is an SD40-2 rebuilt from an SD45.  Notice the flared radiator grills on the end of the long hood.

The yard switcher backed into the yard again, and a few minutes later, Amtrak's southbound Vermonter showed up, right on time, on its trip to Washington, DC.  The Vermonter has a cab car on the end.  It is led by the P42 from St. Albans, VT to Palmer, MA, where it switches to CSX's main line across Massachusetts to get to Springfield.  NECR and CSX cross at a diamond there, and the two main lines are connected to each other.  However, the setup there allows southbound trains from NECR to go east on CSX, but the Vermonter has to go west to get to Springfield.  So it switches over to the CSX line in Palmer and then is led by the cab car to Springfield, where it turns south to New Haven, CT.  At New Haven, the P42 is pulled off the train and an electric locomotive, either an HHP-8, an AEM-7, or a new ACS-64, pulls the train the rest of the way to Washington.

Amtrak's southbound Vermonter arrives just in time at White River Junction.

Passengers get on board the Vermonter.

The Vermonter continues on its journey to Washington.  The cab car will lead the train from Palmer, MA to New Haven, CT.

After the Vermonter left, the yard switchers pulled out of the yard and backed in one more time, and then pulled the train out and headed south behind the Vermonter.  I have no idea where the train's destination was, just that it was heading south.

3317's conductor steps off the train.

Genesee & Wyoming bought out New England Central recently.  This is NECR's new logo on the side of freshly painted 3317.

B&M 494, a 4-4-0 built by Manchester Locomotive Works in the late 19th century, watches as its modern counterpart heads south.

Once the southbound freight train left, so did I.  I got back in my car at 11:20, having only spent twenty minutes at White River Junction on an unplanned stop not expecting to see anything at all!