Pan Am Railways EDMO crawls through Soapstone, MA at 4:21 pm on Saturday, 03/21/2009. The train left East Deerfield before 9:00 am with three units and only made it as far as Buckland before the crew expired. A new crew came on board at 2:30 pm and proceeded west. Even with three 4-axle units, moving the 97 cars proved to be quite challenging. As the train passed Zoar, the dispatcher informed the crew that they would drop one of the units (the 502) on the Soapstone Siding (the transmission was broken up, but it sounded like the 502 was needed for a work train). The crew dutifully set off the 502, coupled back to their train, and started west - barely! If ever there was a time I wish I had a video camera it was the moment when the train started on the grade. Wheels were squealing (and slipping), and the sound was absolutely deafening. The train actually had trouble maintaining the "slow order" speed limit of 10 mph - it could barely make 5 mph! Only on Pan Am!

Photographed by Rich Kugel, March 21, 2009.
Added to the photo archive by Rich Kugel, March 24, 2009.
Railroad: Pan Am Railways.

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