ATTLEBORO, Mass. — The Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority has, in fairly subtle fashion, joined the list of commuter operators employing locomotives with heritage paint schemes.
Newly rebuilt GP40MC No. 1129 — handling a test train of Hyundai-Rotem bilevel cars — passes through Attleboro on Aug. 28, 2024, displaying a version of the “cranberry” paint scheme applied to some FP10s and at least one F40PH in the mid-1980s. The locomotive began life as Canadian National GP40-2W No. 9565 in 1975; it underwent a prior rebuild in 1997 by AMF in Montreal. The train is operating on Main 2 of Amtrak’s New Haven Line east of MP 197 — an oddity in that MBTA trains operate on tracks 3 or 4 to be able to access station platforms. Prominent in the background is the Second Congregational Church, built in 1904.
Pretty loco but absurd that MBTA hasn’t finished stringing wires on their NEC trackage and switched to electric power.
Steve, The NEC is Electrified into South Station, the northern terminus for the NEC. I agree it is nuts that the “T” hasn’t purchased electric motive power yet.
Even if they only can use them on the NEC it would free up the diesels for other lines.
NEC in Massachusetts/ Rhode Island was electrified by about 2001. So MBTA has had about 23 years to buy electrified locos (and electrify shop tracks, layover tracks, etc.) But MBTA continues to run diesels.
The irony being that Bay State politicos think they can electrify the entire suburban system — Ex New York Central, ex New Haven, ex Boston and Maine. They can’t discontinue diesels where wires have existed for many years.
See pp 122-123 of Scott Hartley’s book, “New Haven Ralroad – The Final Decades. The color photo shows the one-off cranberry-colored New Haven Alco DL-109 tricked out for New Haven’s “Cranberry” train, Boston to Cape Cod. The locomotive was filmed at a whole other location in NW Connecticut in 1955.
Cranberries are grown in New Haven territory, mostly in low-lying Pymouth County but one bog (now abandoned) as far inland/ uphill as Sharon in Norfolk County.
The photog is a bit deceiving. NEC in Mass and Rhode Island is two tracks. However freight runs Mansfield to Attleboro, about three miles (including I believe at this location), EB freight on WB NEC and WB freight on EB NEC.
While Attleboro is a stop for MBTA on the main line, North Attleborough (a separate city and spelled differently) was astride the long-abandoned nowhere-to-nowhere Wrentham Branch.