FL9

At first for today’s post I chose this shot of a UP intermodal with a Cotton Belt and a Southern Pacific GP60 for power with the intention of discussing how when you just get used to a parade of yellow units, lashups like this from the past surprise you.  My wife and I were on the way home to Benbrook from her mother’s place near Franklin one summer Sunday afternoon in 2003, when just outside Kosse this train raced by southbound towards Hearne.  A solid scarlet and grey consist in this day and age could not be ignored, so I pulled a fast U-turn and covered the miles back to Bremond flying low.  I pulled over at the old SP milepost 141 marker south of Bremond, and it was only a minute or two before he caught up to us.

The lead unit number 9647 from three years ago seemed familiar, and sure enough a quick check of the previous daily doings reminded me this engine was also the lead unit on the loaded rock train I photographed at Tower 60 on March 16th.  Check back and you will see it still looks pretty good without a yellow paint job.  Thank goodness those surprises are still coming!   

No that I’m an expert now, but back when I knew less about publishing I sent this slide in to Joe McMillan for calendar consideration.  It looked better back then, but on the other hand the pole behind the lead unit did not help matters.  In the end Joe turned it down primarily for the reason you could not see the letter “a” in Santa Fe on the side of the lead unit due to an open hood door.  The little details will get you sometimes.

Loaded coal trains are one thing you do not normally see on Curtis Hill today, but back in 1978 the ATSF ran a few test trains from the York Canyon Mine eastbound to Kansas City.  I’m not sure what the final destination was.  On the May 15th, I was fortunate enough to catch this eastbound load coming down Curtis Hill with normal coal train power for the day, an RCE-equipped SD45 and three SD26’s on the point.

Before the birth of BNSF and the accompanying acquisition of the BN line from Fort Worth to Amarillo, in the early 1990’s ATSF gained trackage rights over the UP’s Baird Subdivision from Fort Worth to Tecific where they regain home rails on the Slaton Sub to Clovis.  ATSF’s quest was to maintain a short and fast route between Dallas-Fort Worth and the west coast for hot intermodal traffic while selling off the Godley and Dublin Subs for shortline use by South Orient and now the FWWR.

Even though now the majority of hot BNSF trains ply the old BN line to Amarillo and an occasional diversion still uses the Dublin Sub, a few BNSF intermodals and manifest trains still shine the Baird Sub’s rails almost every day along with the usual UP fleet.  We saw a cloudy shot on the Baird Sub in yesterday’s post, but today the sun was shining again, so here is an appropriate view from Sunday January 16th, 2005.  With a friendly wave at the competition, the conductor of eastbound UP 4902 in the siding at Iona is on the ground for the rolling inspection of BNSF 5522 west speeding down the main on its way to Sweetwater.

It rained pretty much all day long, and I was thankful we live on relatively high ground as I watched the local flooding on television.  The local weatherman said that more than nine inches of rain had fallen in places today, but listening to the scanner, the railroads were relatively unaffected.  Case in point was today’s ZNSLC train, seen here in Benbrook at Horse Club Road as he accelerates out of town on the Baird Sub.  With three NS and one UP up front representing a good horsepower-to-ton ratio, this hot train should arrive at the next crew change point in Sweetwater in less than five hours.