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NEGS - Gas Plant Track Work

Written by Ian MacMillan

Saturday, 17 November 2007

Rare mileage! First cars in 18 years on this rail

At the request of Peter the "Gas Plant" siding in Northfield needed to be put back in service to store a boxcar for a customer. Recently the Lakeport Historical Society purchased one of the D&H boxcars from NEGS and to restore and place infront of the freight house at the Lakeport station site in Laconia.

However they had yet to build a track for it or locate someone to lift the boxcar and haul it to Lakeport, and so it had to go somewhere. With running out of space to store unused cars in Concord diminshing, it was decided to store it on the former gas plant siding, and makes it easier for the Historical Society to truck it in the spring.

NEGS TC 103 on the gas plant siding

Setting on at West Portmouth St on what turned out to be a very cold day, myself, Frank, and Jesse highballed north to Northfield. The siding was pretty well brushed in, having not been used in about 18 or so years. Attempts to gain the active propane company on the siding back have not come to order because of transport costs, but with the rise in fuel, maybe it will happen in the future.

Chain saws, hand saws, and brush blades in hand we spent about 3 hours cutting the entire siding back to the fence, and about 12' out from each rail. After the cutting was finished I decided to also brush back the crossing that was at the end of the switch so that the sight line was improved.

How come the Foreman is doing all the work?

Since we would be bringing the boxcar up the next day when we were coming up to pick up the caboose train, there would be no time on Sunday to try and complete putting the switch back into service. A check of the linkage and gauge on the switch showed that everything was in order and ok. Checking the points I found that they had been spiked like I thought they would, but I had forgot to bring a spike puller. Thankfully Frank remembered that there were some up at the Caboose village, so we ran up and picked one up. Man, was that spike in their tight! Using 2 men with spike pullers we were finally able to free the spike and the points. We greased the plates and switch stand, cleaned the throwbars, slapped a quick coat of red paint on the switch target, and I placed the siding offically back inservice at 1420 hours.

The next day Gordy and Paul switched the boxcar into the siding on the southbound caboose move, along with another, Franks "Winnipesaukee River" caboose, used as an idler car, racking up 23' of rare milage!

You're welcome Frank, highlight it on the map!

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