robertjohndavis wrote:
Billerica was an interesting graveyard. I was up there in the early 1990's to photograph the last days of the Boston Engine Terminal, and made it over to Billerica. There were still milk cars, MOW equipment and the odd portion of an EMD product lying around. Very little got out of the first round of scrapping (maybe 1 or 2 pieces besides your B unit) and I don't think anything got out from the later rounds.
Rob
Rob
1988/89 was quite an interesting time. The shops were closed due to the workers strike against Guilford, yet somehow we were able to get to talk to the right people about buying a B-unit. We knew there were three in the dead line- confirmed by the management to be the last ones. I remember the man in charge name was Mike Walsh. He and another white shirt were puzzled as to our interest in such junk and more importantly how we were going to get it off the property. Mr Walsh wanted an offer which I gave pretty quickly based on the best guess for scrap value at that time. He accepted the number without much hesitation and told us to go with the white shirt guy to pick out which one we wanted. #4268 was the only one with an intact diesel engine. #4265 and #4267 were the other two. Walsh who was kind of a no nonsense guy, hated by the rank and file union people, really seemed to warm up to our efforts when he sensed we knew what we were doing. I remember him saying we could help ourselves to any parts from the other locomotives in the dead line or items we could find in the shop. Just stay clear of the scrapping operation!
(I need to write a complete story sometime - maybe someone would be interested)
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File comment: Scrapping at Billerica, MA in 1988. Lots of B&M GP9's, GP7's and a few MBTA E units and the last B&M F-units (except #4268B) RWJ-ARHSBillerica88.jpg [ 174.61 KiB | Viewed 6583 times ] |