Arriving at the parking lot for the Old Saybrook station, one finds it within what is essentially an L-shaped strip mall that makes locating the old Victorian station a bit difficult, particularly since the (larger) attached freight house has been sold off and converted to a pizza restaurant. Walking through the old station, which has now become solely a ticket office, one arrives at the tracks, turns left, and sees the new station with its elevators and bridge across the tracks.
Left: Amtrak 173 drawn by 650, an HHP8, arrived from Boston while a Providence and Worcester diesel pauses on an adjacent track while next to a a self-propelled crane moves slowly forward. Right: The P&W engine soon headed north, and the crane stopped at the end of its spur.
The old station (in the distance) and the former freight station.
Left: The rear of the Acela locomotive and and the front of 650. Right: The front of the HHP-8, "double-ended electric locomotive manufactured by a consortium of Bombardier and Alstom. HHP-8 stands for High HorsePower 8000. The HHP-8s replaced the GE E60s and supplement the aging AEM-7s on Amtrak's Northeast Corridor" (Wikipedia).
Left: The waiting train 173 with the new station in the background. Middle: The locomotive's various cables. Right: A view of the HHP-8's recessed door handles and grab irons.
A Freight run-around track. Seeing what looked like two narrow-guage rails between two others, I approached the two conductors and someone else who worked for the railroad to ask about them. The conductors had no idea what they were, but the third man — could he have been the engineer? — said," "You're looking at it the wrong way. It's a freight run-around track — another set of tracks a foot or so away from the platform so freight trains do not risk smashing the platform." Looking again at the tracks with this new information in mind, I immediately saw what I'd missed earlier: rust covered two of the tracks, and two had the shiny surface that comes with use. Clearly, the two rusty rails formed a set farther from the platform than the shiny ones. I'll look more carefully next time. I hope.
Left: Train 172 drawn by electric Locomotive 918 arrives at the Old Saybrook station while the Acela headed South remains at rest. Middle and Right: 928 is an AEM-7 built by the Electromotive Dividsion of General Motors fron 1978-88. According to Wikipedia,
In the Boston Mechanical Department of Amtrak they are known as "Meatballs" and in the Washington Mechanical Department they are knowns as ASEAs since some of their major parts and components were designed in Sweden by ASEA (Allmänna Svenska Elektriska Aktiebolaget), which was merged with ABB (Asea Brown Boveri) in 1988). They are also affectionately referred to as "toasters" by railfans owing to their boxy appearance."
Information identifying the model and manufacturers of the individual locomotives came from RR Picture Archives.net. Thanks.
