FL9

I’m taking a vacation day Friday and my wife is leaving work after lunch so we can get an early start for Sweetwater to visit my father.  This time for sure.  To seal the deal here are a few shots from there taken on August 17th, 2005.

My father and I heard the UP dispatcher discussing BNSF 7736 west in the siding at Eskota, a few miles east of Tecific.  I assumed this was a BNSF train sporting a new GEVO as we headed that way from town.  When we arrived at Tecific, the UP 5015 West came around the curve into that great afternoon low light.

(Read on …)

Reading Leonard Ruback’s blog from yesterday, I’m glad to see I’m not the only one who meticulously plans a picture, only to shoot myself in the foot at the last moment.  Leonard, I still like it as is, but I know you won’t rest now until you have the opportunity to shoot it again the way you want it.  I really enjoyed seeing the bluebonnets, as we don’t have any around Fort Worth yet.  They reminded me of my favorite bluebonnet shot from last year, which compared to the complexity of Leonard’s was shooting fish in a barrel.  In the spring of 2005 the city of Llano sponsored a bluebonnet special train that made round trips to a point several miles east of town on the Austin Area Terminal Railroad.  Using borrowed passenger cars from the Austin & Texas Central and MP15 #63 from the AATR, here we see the train loading passengers at Llano in front of a patch of its namesake flowers on April 16th.

I always like to include local landmarks in my shots if possible, and skylines certainly fulfill that desire.  Back on July 8th 2005 the days were long enough that I could get this shot off of Meacham Boulevard of a northbound train on the BNSF Fort Worth Sub with downtown Fort Worth in the background.  On this day the predictability of Amtrak 822’s departure from the ITC station on its way to OKlahoma City would fill the bill.  Except for track, horn and bell noise, the engineer of the Heartland Flyer has a quiet ride this evening in “Cabbage”  cab/baggage car #90229, rebuilt from F40 #229.

Mondays are usually busy at work, so I’m not sure what I was thinking when I made an early dental appointment for today.  I was a few minutes late for the last visit, so this time I left the office with time to spare.  That turned out to be a good move, since I caught sight of unpatched scarlet and grey headed west as I passed over Centennial Yard on Bryant Irvin.  I zoomed down to Horse Club Road, and even though the light was poor, it was a good move as the engine turned out not to be a GP60 as I had imagined, but Cotton Belt GP40-2M #7283.  The trusty G6 did its work in capturing this old veteran leading the 79 local towards Abilene, and I made it to the waiting room with five minutes to spare before my turn in the chair.

The photo data shown indicates the date and time I processed the RAW shot instead of the time the photo was taken for some reason, but I’ll save that mystery for earlier on another day.