New Beginnings | CSXT 2769 Leads L054 Tie Train east & MEC 505 Leads L054 west (9/15/2025)

The previous night before this recording, I would get word that L054 had run up to Riley's with ten loaded gondolas of ties. Thinking I was being pranked because you really wouldn't think the Rumford branch would get any kind of maintenance, I would set out the following morning to see if this was true. Low and behold it was! CSXT 2769 (GP38-2), and MEC 505 (GP40-2LW) would shove these tie gondolas onto their train and set off for Rumford, ME. Instead of just ten tie gondolas however, there was twenty. They would end up stopping and shoving the first five into a siding in Dixfield, ME. Then they would arrive in Rumford and set the rest into the yard, assemble their westbound consist, and depart back west for Riley's. This to my knowledge marks the first time in over a decade since the branch has received any major maintenance, and will hopefully be the end of the over four decades of neglect this branch has been dealt.