CSX and MBTA trains at Framingham and Ashland, MA- June 19, 2023

0:00 - CSX L010 drops off its train at Nevins Yard and returns its power to North Yard
2:00 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #520
2:38 - CSX L004 does some switching
4:37 - The Bay Line caboose (MCCX #10) makes an appearance. It's heading to Middleboro.
6:38 - CSX L010's power gets moved into North Yard to couple to its return consist
8:32 - CSX L004's engineer moves SD40-2 8833 off the wye and out of L010's way
9:22 - CSX L010 gets ready for departure (bunch of radio chatter)
10:52 - CSX L010 inches forward a little into the wye
12:35 - More radio chatter with CSX L010
13:46 - CSX L010 finally departs Framingham
20:12 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #523 with a little hornshow
21:03 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #524 (late)
21:58 - CSX Y101 wyes its massive amount of power
24:21 - CSX Y101 assembles its train at Nevins Yard
33:52 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #527 at Ashland
34:37 - CSX Y101 on the move at Ashland, heading to Worcester with 17,600hp active
40:24 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #530 at Ashland
41:25 - MBTA Commuter Rail (Keolis) #529 at Ashland

It was nice today, and thanks to Juneteenth I had the rare weekday off from work, so I biked from Boston to Framingham to watch some trains. No Amtrak today unfortunately, due to track work further west on the CSX Boston & Albany line. Amtrak Lake Shore Limited 448 and 449 were replaced with buses.

Oddly L004 was doing the yard switching duties at Framingham North Yard building L005's train. Normally, Y101 is the train that does the switching.

Apparently several crossings on the Framingham Secondary were out of service, requiring L010's conductor to stop the train and protect the crossing. I was debating biking over to the Blandin Ave crossing to see that, but decided against it as I wasn't sure if I could make it over in time before L010 passed through.

Later, as I was considering heading home, I noticed a huge amount of power (5 4400hp GE road engines) being wyed at Framingham. I suspected this would be used to move a bunch of cars from Nevins Yard over to Worcester (a job that L002 normally does, but various jobs including Y101 and L048 have been doing this task the last few months). I headed over to Nevins to film the train being built, before biking to the Cherry St crossing in Ashland to see it on the move (I ended up being about 40 minutes early to Ashland, which meant I missed some of the switching - there was a cut of boxcars that L010 dropped off that got attached to Y101 that I missed). Overall though, a pretty nice day to watch some trains (and to bike 50 miles)

Nikon Z30 / NIKKOR Z DX 16-50mm f/3.5-6.3 VR / ball-head tripod / SmallRig Fuzzy Windbuster