More Connecticut River Corridor News

 Although my last update on the Connecticut Valley Corridor was only back in March, I have some additional updates from a follow up trip in October. The most significant are alterations to SPRING interlocking in Springfield, MA. The root cause for altering SPRING is to create an interlocked connection between Boston Line Track 2A and the Amtrak Springfield Line trackage. This route was previously used by the old Vermonter and Inland Route Regionals and required the use of hand throw switches to the east of the station. Without a connection at SPRING, Track 2A is only purpose is to serve as an emergency berth for the daily Lake Shore Limited round trip. The new switch allows Track 2A to be used for both CT Rail Hartford Line trains and Amtrak Springfield Shuttles and also creates additional storage space for increased CT Rail or Regional service. 

Of course there always has to be a downside and unfortunately the changes at SPRING will also cause the elimination of what is arguably the last vintage signal on the Amtrak Springfield Line.  Station track #8 is still governed by a US&S N-2 dwarf, possibly dating back to the New Haven era.  Moreover station track #6 is governed by an uncommon US&S modular dwarf stack that was installed in the early-2000's to replace an H-5 searchlight.  Both will be replaced by Safetran modular cube dwarfs that infected the Springfield line back in 2004.

The bad news doesn't stop there as the New Englande Central re-signaling project continues unabated. It currently appears that new standard sized ABS blocks are in service between Walpole and Claremont, replacing the old B&M large block CTC. This also implies that the new signaling at Claremont has been activated. New interlocking huts have been dropped at both the south end of the Walpole siding and the Bellows Falls diamond. At the north end of the Walpole siding the new interlocking retained the southbound searchlight mast, so it remains to be see if there are any searchlit survivors in the Bellows Falls area. I unfortunately neglected to inspect the controlled point south of Bellows Falls, but it is on my list for a visit in the Spring.