Re: Lydonville Sub operations continued [was CP milk trains]
- From: "jshorvath10583" <jshorvath10583@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: cpsig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 01 Jul 2006 01:54:41 -0000
"bm_1950" <duano40@...> wrote:
...it looks like that often talked about photo of the B&M RS3
running past Wells River with the milk cars around 1953 is probably
906.
An interesting thought, Duane. 906 was due in Wells River at
1815 hours (at least in 1953) but the scene does look summery based
on the vegetation and the lighting seems consistent with the late
afternoon that time of year. What about the white flags though?
The train was established right after WWII and I believe it was a
catch all that brought south what ever didn't make it on 902. This
would explain why it always had a single diesel instead of the dual
units that ran on the other trains.
Looking at my April 1953 ETT, 906 is a much more interesting
train than it appears at first. Yes, it did follow 902 into Newport
by about three hours. Also, it actually arrived in Newport off the
Newport Sub more than an hour AHEAD of 904. But 906 'sat' in Newport
more than four hours so that it departed Newport on the Lyndonville
Sub more than an hour AFTER 904 had departed. So perhaps even though
906 was a single train in number perhaps it was really two separate
trains in reality. It may have moved general freight from Montreal
to Newport as a clean up after 902 then from Newport to WRJ it
functioned primarily as the milk train, at least in the time frame
we're talking about.
What really seals the deal for me is that from a close look at
scheduled times in the 1953 ETT one can deduce that 906 was allowed
about 10-12 minutes at St.J which would have been enough time for
the St.J&LC switcher to tie on the milk loads there. Then it's
allowed more than 20 minutes at Barnet where it would have had to do
its own switching to pull the Hood car off the siding and add it to
its train. In fact if one looks at the overall scheduled running
time for 906 between Newport and Wells River it's more than one hour
longer than both 902 and 904, i.e. four-plus hours versus about
three.
FWIW, I think in an earlier (i.e. pre-1951) era 906 actually ran
ahead of 904 south of Newport (perhaps you could check your 1950
ETT, Duane). That's why 906 used to be called Advance UJ-2 on the
B&M as the following 904 was UJ-2. But I'm guessing that after the
CPR milk came off in 1951 they made 906 run after 904 south of
Newport to handle the milk chores which is why they then renamed 906
UJ-4 on the B&M. It couldn't logically still be called Advance UJ-2
anymore as it was now running AFTER UJ-2.
JSH
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