54m 3s: Lenght
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Starting to get on the downhill for this series as we slowly grow closer to the end of the year, so here we go with a nice lengthy 54 minutes of trains! Starting off the month of June, we find ourselves in Morristown to photograph some of the sights around M&E, focusing on the 3 new acquisitions from Bangor & Aroostook (#21, #23 & #79) all before they'd get repainted or scrapped. Following that comes 2 weekday morning trips to Denville to catch a few NJT Geeps, M&E running, and NS Dover-based local H-02; once with a short train and once with two engines for the URHS in Boonton, being RHSX "Erie" #436 and RHSX "Ex. NJT" #1878 with a Conrail caboose on the back. We then head down for some Bound Brook action, and get some first sights and shots after the completion of the floodgate at the west end of the platform. One neat train from that evening would also be NS 32A with a D9W leading 3 offline GP38-2's. After that came one of the big trips of the year, being my first ever visit to Selkirk NY and the surrounding areas. We started off with a few trains at Waldwick NJ, luckily all of them having Geeps for power, then it was on the road north. The time had finally come and we arrived at the famous Ben's Bridge, overlooking CSX Selkirk Yard. Some pretty awesome sights and engines hanging around, and then it was off to Game Farm Rd for a few trains. Our next stop was CP VO for 2 trains, followed by 1 at Guilderland, a brief stop by Selkirk Yard once again and then off on an adventure. Meeting up with our buddy Brandon, we'd get a tour of NY State and were able to see engines and sights around the area, like Cargill equipment in the Port of Albany, old Alcos / coaches tagged up, searchlight signals, XO Tower, and the GE building. Finally, after nearly 13 hours, we had made it to our original goal, Amsterdam, and would see a WB Amtrak there before heading back east. With an epic sunset across the Mohawk River, we'd make one last stop by Rotterdam where we'd even see an MEC "Guilford Rail" high hood. Coming back down into New Jersey, we'd make another Bound Brook and see quite a few trains, including a CSX oil with BNSF/BNSF power, the continuing combo Q438's of mixed freight / trash (this one with an HLCX trailing) and other trains. Later at night the fog came rolling in as we'd see a few more too. Next would be a late June trip with another bounty of trains including ... a YN2 SD40-2 leading, a CSX ACe, a CSX oil with CSX/BNSF/BNSF power, 33K making the old stop-and-cut at Bound Brook to work Manville, 20K with an Ex. UP SD9043MAC leading (which is now an SD70ACU), the NJT "100th Bombardier" ALP45-DP, Engineer Ronnie helming his usual MA1 and18N with an SD80MAC leading. We continued into the night with the CSX Tropicana Juice train, which led to the next day with familiar power on 21M (20K's power from the previous day) and Engineer Sean at the throttle, a CSX oil with CSX/BNSF/NS power, an NS "OLS" D9W #9255 leading 20R/25Z, the remaining 2 NJT F40PH-2CATs that are in service, a CSX oil with CSX/BNSF/BNSF power, an epic Q190 with the only CSX YN2 GP38-2S trailing and NS 25R running as lite power. Closing out this lengthy episode we are down in New Brunswick NJ at the Jersey Ave Station along Amtrak's Northeast Corridor. During a few hours in the hot sun, we got to see a fair amount of Arrow III's, some ACS-64's, Acela's, NJT Comet & Multilevel trains, Conrail local ME-2, an Amtrak Geomety / Track Inspection train and even a few Amtrak AEM-7's which would soon be on the way to retirement.