FL9

Today was a beautiful day with nary a cloud in sight! I got out after lunch, but even though there were plenty of trains and sun, I just could not seem to get into the thrill of the chase. Not seeing the sense in burning $3.00 a gallon gas without realy enjoying a train fix in return, I headed on over to the Stockyards to visit with Troy when the passenger train arrived. Grapevine GP-7 #2199 looked especially good in the afternoon light.

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In the summer of 2001 we were blessed in Texas when the BNSF chose the ex-SLSF 1926 Baldwin 4-8-2 “Mountain” #1522 to pull its Employee Appreciation Special.  The engine was operated by the St. Louis Steam Train Association (SLSTA), and pulled BNSF’s special across Missouri, Oklahoma, Texas and Kansas.  Due to the large number of employees working at corporate headquarters in Fort Worth, the train made multiple round trips between the auto unloading facility at Haslet and the KCS wye at Metro.  This gave us plenty of opportunities to catch him with different light at multiple locations.  Here is one of him on a sunny afternoon southbound between Krum and Ponder alongside highway 156.

I made a new Photo Gallery folder called “Frisco 1522 in Texas,” and I will add more shots of the train as I’m able to get the slides scanned.  Here is one more shot for now of 1522 accelerating northbound out of Metro as he left Texas headed back to St. Louis.  This telephoto shot where I used the curve to mask the trailing diesel from view graced the box cover of Railway Production’s video documenting the trip.

I feel very privileged to have seen this beautifully restored and maintained engine run, as the next year the SLSTA was forced to retire her for display at the St. Louis Museum of Transportation due to risiing insurance costs, needed boiler work, and increasingly limited main line access.

Back on January 25th of 2005, I was still figuring out the new Canon 20D I had recently received compliments of Trains Magazine.  Some of the guys and I drove down to Brownwood to see what we could find, and the radio soon led us east to the passing siding at Zephyr on the Lampassas Sub.  The Temple to Brownwood local was eastbound in the siding, and he had a nice lahup of GP30 #2401 and a GP-40X.  The local had pulled in to meet a westbound, and soon we were pleased to catch a pair of SD45-2’s headed for Brownwood with an empty rock train.

The local was then told he would have to wait on another westbound, so he backed up to clear the primary grade crossing.  We did not mind, as now he was positioned for a well lit shot with the classic ATSF station sign while making this reverse move.  Take a close look a the sign, and you will see where someone had issues spelling Zephyr with an “E” versus a “Y”, and the “Y” won out.

I think tomorrow we’ll work up a little steam……

Things have been very busy at home and at work this past week, and I will do my best now to get these posts caught up to date over the weekend.  If you like to see a new picture here every day even if it is late now and then, let me know in the comments section below.  I will be happy to continue if people are enjoying it.

Thursday morning my coworker Keith Ellis picked me up at 6:15am so we could be at Nortel’s offices in north Richardson for a meeting at 9:00am.  Keith did not want to face the drive any more than I did, so we both opted for mass transit and caught TRE train 2910 out of the T&P station at 7:01am.  I took my Canon G6 along in my bag since it is small and unobtrusive.

We sat in the first seats in cab car #1002 as we pulled out and made our first stop at the ITC.  So far I would guess we had 60 or 70 fellow passengers.  The fireman’s windshield visible directly through the glass partition was not as clean as I would have liked, but I still got a sunrise shot as we took the siding at Sylvania for a rolling meet with a westbound set of increasingly rare RDC’s.

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