Ghost of the B&M: Though I was born too late to experience it in its heyday, the Boston and Maine became my favorite railroad through my visits to family who lived in B&M country and my exposure to various books and magazines. So often I wish I had a time machine and could do such things as hang out around Troy Union Station in the 1950s, shoot the lingering local freights on the Troy Branch in the 1960s, and chase West End road freights in the 1970s.
Though I have no such time machine, there arose an opportunity for me to catch a glimpse of what the B&M of old looked like when the Massachusetts Central Railroad acquired a pair of GP38-2s and painted them in McGinnis era B&M-inspired paint. Though the Massachusetts Central runs over former Boston and Albany--not Boston and Maine--track, central Massachusetts is still B&M country.
Here we see Massachusetts Central GP38-2 #1750 leading its train north past Forest Lake in Palmer, MA. The 1750 is numbered after one of the B&M's GP18s of the same number. With the fog lifting off the trees in the background, it truly seemed like a ghost of the B&M was passing by as the train moved along. Though many often lament an engine running long-hood forward, when I look at this photo I'm reminded of the sight of a B&M GP9 in the same scheme running long hood forward on the Troy Branch in 1968 (see page 77 of Jeremy and Jeffrey Plant's "Boston and Maine In Color" book for the image I have in mind).
Needless to say, I'm very thankful for the Massachusetts Central deciding to pay tribute to the B&M in this way and thereby providing photographers like myself a chance to relive railroad history.
Not
just heritage schemes, not just commemorative schemes - this album is devoted to some of the world's most interesting paint schemes, past or present.
