RTEX: East Brookfield, Mass. 2006

Here's a roster shot of RTEX 1274 switching autoracks in the East Brookfield yard back in March 2006. The funny thing about this photo is what happened shortly after I took it. I went up there with a rather well-known railroad model author, who was acting as my guide. He said he knew a way to get in close to the yard, so we could take some closeups of the RTEX locomotives. Anyway, we troop through the woods and come out along side the tracks.

``We have got to be trespassing," I said.

"Nah, they don't care,'' he reassured me.

Thinking about it in retrospect, he never said we weren't trespassing... he just said no one cared that were were there. At the time, I didn't think about too much and took his assurance as Gospel. I start snapping away. I got the GP-38-2, as well as the SW1200. Through the view finder I notice the crews are watching us as intently as we are watching them.

"Are you sure we're alright here?"

"No problem."

I take some more photos. We pack up and head back to my car. When we come out to the street there is a nice young policeman standing next to my car.

"You know you were trespassing up there?" he asks.

"Really?" my companion asks. "All the other times I have been up there no one has said a word."

"Well, the guys down at the yard called,'' he said. ``There are a lot of expensive automobiles up here and they don't like people poking around.''

"Oh, well, okay."

"Why don't you guys just move along,'' he said. ``And don't come back up here again."

I was a bit embarrassed. I don't like trespassing. It's a bad policy and antagonizes people, who don't need to be antagonized. Besides, that is what telephoto lenses are for. I can't speak for my companion that day, but I have never been back to that particular spot. I also discovered you could see the switchers when they came out of the yard quite easily from the trails in Spencer State Forest, so there was no need to flirt with trouble.

It's been many years since I have been up there, so I don't know what the current state of the operation is.