Newly refurbished Eastern Maine Railway (EMRY) 6403, Owned by the New Brunswick Southern Railway (NBSR), trails as the third unit on the northbound Paducah to Centralia, IL BNSF local as it pulls north at Chiles Junction in West Paducah, Kentucky with BNSF 7901 and 6147 leading the way on July 23, 2021.
Locomotive 6403 is the second of six units that are being refurbished by Progress Rail at Mayfield, KY, for NBSR out of Saint John, NB, Canada. The other units are 6402-6406 and they are all SD70M-2 units and were former NS locomotives.
According to Wikipedia: The Eastern Maine Railway Company Limited (reporting mark EMRY) is a 99.5 mi U.S. short line railroad owned by the New Brunswick Railway Company, a holding company that is part of “Irving Transportation Services”, a division within the industrial conglomerate J.D. Irving Limited.
EMRY was established as a corporate entity on November 10, 1994, by J.D. Irving Ltd. to purchase the 99.5 mile right of way and physical railway assets of the Canadian Pacific Railway’s Mattawamkeag Subdivision rail line within the state of Maine, running from its eastern terminus at the CanadaUnited States border, this being the midpoint of the Saint Croix-Vanceboro Railway Bridge at Vanceboro, west to Brownville Junction.
Both EMRY and NBSR began operations on January 6, 1995, approximately 1 week after Canadian Pacific Railway abandoned operations of its Canadian Atlantic Railway (CAR) subsidiary on December 31, 1994. In addition to owning the former CPR tracks in Maine, EMRY was an operating entity for the first several months of existence and had running rights over its sister company NBSR’s tracks from the International Boundary east to the yard at McAdam, New Brunswick. In spring 1995 Irving Transportation Services consolidated its railway operations as Eastern Maine Railway Company Limited came under NBSR operational control.
Tech Info: DJI Mavic Air 2 Drone, RAW, 4.5mm (24mm equivalent lens) f/2.8, 1/800, ISO 100.