FL9

It was overcast, cold, windy, and trainless at the west end of Centennial this evening, so tonight’s memory takes us back to a better and busier scene last summer.

Saturday afternoon on July 30th, 2005 found me on top of the Meacham Boulevard overpass in north Fort Worth lining up for a shot of a southbound BNSF loaded coal train leaving Saginaw Yard. Nothing spectacular, but we were both there at the same time, measured by the digital camera to be 4:54:18 pm. I think it is a tremendous advance to have all your technical data stored automatically with each photo, and I used it to document just how quickly the rest of this sequence unfolded.

I strolled over to look straight down into the uniform coal cars rolling down the grade, and decided to photograph that angle thirty-nine seconds later at 4:54:57 pm.

I turned to look south at the retreating coal train’s head end, and was surprised to see a northbound UP merchandise train coming up the hill on their Duncan Sub. I remember being lucky there were no cars coming as I ran across to the south side of the bridge. Sixteen seconds had passed as I raised the camera and barely had time to focus before pressing the shutter release, hoping the exposure was still correct at 4:55:13 pm. I was fortunate and caught them together in the same frame as I had hoped.

The northbound UP was moving slowly enough that I was able to run over and eighteen seconds later get a final shot of him about to pass underneath me at 4:55:31 pm, once again only having time to focus.

I started out taking just another off-the-bridge shot on a Saturday afternoon, but one minute and thirteen seconds later I had a sequence of photos I had been wanting to get at this location for years.