Military Train - a photo on Flickriver

Military Train

            In October 2020, the US government finally decided to remove a number of M109 Paladin, self propelled guns out of the former Loring AFB site, where they had been in storage for nearly 30 years. 

The M109's were sent to Loring after the Air Force shut the base down, for the Maine Military Authority to rebuild. MMA was a state owned operation that rehabbed military equipment, for the government to resell overseas. It was done as a way to keep some kind of industry in the area, since the base closure resulted in some 1,300 becoming jobless and more than 8,000 people (1/3 of the population of Aroostook County) to leave. 

While the group stayed busy for a number of years, business began to slow around the time of the recession. Not long after they lost the contracts for the military equipment and moved to rebuilding buses for MBTA. After those contracts were completed, the group went defunct in 2018. 

Finally in 2020, it was decided the M109's would be moved out and shipped to California, where they would be parted out and eventually used as gunnery targets. 

Since the branch from Caribou to the base was long since abandoned and the tracks from Presque Isle to Caribou embargoed, the M109's were trucked to the Skyway Industrial Park in PI. From there they were loaded onto flatcars.

Between the loading and the process to get the flatcars roadworthy, it took a few weeks. Finally the M109's went south from Presque Isle to Oakfield, then down to Brownville where the train was dropped for CP. CP then forwarded the train to Pan Am. I can't remember the exact reason, but CP didn't want to spin the train on the loop, so when Pan Am got it the guns were facing the wrong direction.
On the Waterville-Portland leg of the trip, it was decided the train would be turned on the wye at Leeds Jct. The chase would be fairly short-lived, as when they turned the train at Leeds Jct, they derailed on the wye.

After this move, cars were brought up for a second move. However that never panned out, since the cars were in poor shape and were sent back west. The remaining M109's were eventually trucked out.

A somewhat comical outcome of the move, was the fact that many conspiracy theory sites shared photos of the M109's sitting at NMJ.  The claim being that they were from the Chinese military and that China had invaded the very strategic location of northern Maine (with a bunch of 90's era M109's missing tracks, motors and guns), to try and influence the 2020 election. 

Like all things post 2020, people bought every word of it, because nothing can ever be the logical answer anymore...

Pan Am Railways
Train: WAPO-21
10/21/2020
Waterville Maine
ST District 1 Waterville Yard
   

Taken in: United States / Maine / Waterville / Waterville (show map)

Taken on: October 21, 2020

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10/21/2020

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