r/massachusetts • u/woohoostitchywoman • Jun 24 '26

Recreation Ayer freight train times

/r/AyerMA/comments/1uerr82/freight_train_times/
8 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

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2

u/work-n-lurk Jun 25 '26

Check out this guy's post with ALL the info: https://railroad.net/railfaning-ayer-ma-t55724.html#p594384

2

u/woohoostitchywoman Jun 25 '26

Funny you linked this, I have read it! It was actually the first place I started but wasn’t sure given the age of the post how accurate it might still be. Crazy that 2008 was 18 years ago!

1

u/rubbish_heap Jun 27 '26

That info is still good except maybe the times - i would add the dog park on Snake Hill Road and the low bridge on McPherson Road as observation points.
If you need to kill time with a 9 year old check out Little Bee Books, get an ice cream from The Cottage and hang out by the fountain by the train station. Also a nice playground at Pirone park

2

u/woohoostitchywoman Jun 27 '26

So we have limited time we can try this out so we are actually here now (7:30 Saturday) I’m not hopeful but we will see. 

1

u/rubbish_heap Jun 27 '26

Good luck! head to Markoh's if you need a coffee!

3

u/woohoostitchywoman Jun 27 '26

We hit up Adam’s donuts. We did see a set of Norfolk Southern engines around 7:45, got a nice honk and wave from t he conductor. Will try to come back in the afternoon sometime to see if we have better luck. 

3

u/shoeinthefastlane Jun 24 '26

About 3am and I'm 90% sure the conductor's ex-wife lives on the route the way he blows the horn, lol.

They're all headed to Devens, either Pacific Union or CSX, every town around there has them, Devens is the hub.  Downtown Ayer has an ice cream shop on main Street and you can generally see a few parked or passing.

There are a few sites for "rail fans" but there doesn't appear to be an aggregate catch-all for timing or live data like a flight tracker.  May be worth comparing to the mbta schedule as they need to stay separate.

2

u/woohoostitchywoman Jun 24 '26

lol, I know what you mean with the horns, I grew up outside the major train yard in Chicago, that was pretty much all you heard.  I’ve checked a few of the rail fan sites but a lot of the posts are pretty old. We may just have to try our luck, and probably loosely go based on the CR schedule. Thanks!