FL9

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.

The dirty windshield coupled with running into the sun kept me from taking any more shots the rest of the way to Dallas.  Gas prices hovering around $3.00 a gallon made sure the train filled steadily at each stop as we progressed eastward, and a large number exited at the Medical Market station.  We made our transfer to a DART light rail train at Dallas Union Station around 8:00am, and progressed north towards Richardson.  Looking at the inside of the car, it is hard to tell that you are not on a city bus as compared to the train we just left.

We arrived at the Galatyn Park station in Richardson right on time at 9:00am, and walked the last block to our meeting at Nortel.  The meeting went well, and the catered lunch topped it off perfectly.  As Keith and I walked back to the DART station, the significance of a lone telephone pole next to the sidewalk suddenly struck home as one of the remaining artifacts of the old Cotton Belt Railroad right-of-way the DART light rail line was built on from just south of LBJ Freeway north to Plano.

How or why this pole alone survived the reconstruction is a mystery to me.  I have shots of Cotton Belt and SP freights passing through this area before the line was abandoned, and I will post some when they surface in the sea of Logan metal slide file boxes.  We only had to wait a few minutes at the Galatyn Park station before our ride back to Dallas Union Station came along.

A few minutes later as we were pulling out of the Spring Valley station, I tried a shot through the glass partition and windshield looking south as a northbound train approached.

We had about 45 minutes to wait at Dallas Union Station before our TRE train would depart, so I parked myself at the south end of the platform for a few shots.  Within minutes an eastbound UP intermodal came around the corner, and I made the best of it from the shadow side.

I was looking the other way and almost missed this second eastbound right on the heels of the first as he silently glided through the station.

Now that the second intermodal was past, I turned my attention to an eastbound light rail train as he approached the platforms.

The light rail train eased to a stop and the crowed flowed on and off in a ritual repeated every few minutes here.

Next the TRE train set that would be our return ride to Fort Worth arrived in the station.  I really like that paint scheme, so much that I have the now banned Athearn sets in both HO and N scale.

Keith and I settled into the first seats in the cab car again, and this time #1004 had a perfectly clean windshield and partition.  I tried a test shot as as an eastbound DART train left the station.

We left the station on time at 3:04pm, and I zoomed all the way out through the windshield as we passed an eastbound Dallas, Garland & Northeastern freight job waiting patiently for us to pass.

As we passed over the Trinity River on the new side of the double track bridge, I got a shot including the rebuilt Burlington Rock Island bridge’s through truss that had singly carried freight and passenger traffic for so many years.

A westbound green signal was visible as we pulled into the South Irving Station, and moments later I was rewarded with this shot of the train as he was leaving the station.

When we pulled into the Centreport/DFW Airport station, I realized I had not noticed this dog-leg in the mainline to the east of the depot.  It was not there in B-RI days, so I’m guessing the TRE must have a problem with unstable ground right here.

Next we took the siding at Tarrant and stopped over the grade crossing close to the west end.  Within minutes this eastbound raised a cloud of dust as he flew by on the main line.

The rest of the trip was uneventful and soon we were back at our starting point in the T&P depot station.  In 27 minutes F59PHI #569 will push this train back to Dallas, but Keith and I will be almost to our respective homes by then.

Back to the office tomorrow, but at least it will be Friday!