FL9

I did not get out of Fort Worth today until 6:30pm with Sweetwater as my destination.  The Baird Sub was very quiet on the radio, and it looked like today would go down as pictureless until literally the last few minutes.  As I left Cisco on I20, the sun finally made an appearance as it dropped into the open zone between the cloud deck and the horizon.  The sky was turning a shade of red as I approached the small community of Putnam.  The radio silence was shattered by a static plagued conversation that I interpreted as an eastbound train giving up a warrant at Clyde.

I exited I20 and after driving around for a few minutes trying to compose a picture, I found a large puddle at the west end of town that the reddening sky was reflected in.  I framed my shot and started to wonder if I had heard correctly as the minutes ticked by and the sky began to darken.  Let’s see,  Clyde to Putnam, how long should it take at track speed?  Any train should have been here by now……

Just as I was about to give up, I nearly jumped out of my shoes when the block signal popped on showing a bright red for westbounds.  I double checked my settings, which would test the resolution of the Canon 5D as I was going to have to now push it to ASA 1600 to get the shutter speed and F-stop combination I wanted.  In about two minutes the UP 3853 East came speeding by with a manifest train on its way to Fort Worth.

I packed up and headed on west to Sweetwater as the sky lost all color within a few more minutes, confident I had achieved my daily photographic quota during the last few seconds of daylight.  Did I succeed?  You be the judge and vote with your comment.  

On a bleak February 28th in 2004 when all the vegetation was still dormant, the westbound ZNSLC train had a CSX unit leading, which in itself was not all that rare an occurance.  THe unusual part came in that this was a two-digit number GE AC44CW, CSX #15.

After I caught him in Boaz Park, I heard him talking to an eastbound he would be meeting at Iona.  Remember this is the UP where no road locomotive in recent history has less than a four digit number.  The eastbound asked the ZNSLC for his engine number, to which the reply was “CSX 15.”  The eastbound said ” I missed part of that number,” to which the reply was once again “CSX 15.”  The eastbound then tried again by asking, “OK, is 15 the first two or the last two digits of your engine number?”  This went on without improvement until the frustrated engineer on the ZNSLC said heatedly, ”Look, I give up, just read it for yourself as we go by!”  Not exactly Tonight Show material, but not bad for the railroad.

Tomorrow it is off to Sweetwater after work to look after my father until next Monday. 

Well, as I predicted after a few hours I could not resist making a brief run around town before woring on my “to do” list.  I first headed east along the UP towards Centennial Yard until I saw the headlights of a westbound train parked on the Santa Fe bypass under the Bryant-Irvin overpass.  Then I looked to the right and saw the approach signals for the new bypass tracks were displaying yellow over yellow.  It was now I noticed a locomotive headlight in my rear view mirror, and so I stepped on the gas and passed what turned out to be a westbound BNSF train under the overpass.  I headed down to the Centennial Yard west end overpass for this shot of what turned out to be an eastbound BNSF train coming off of the Baird Sub.

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My wife and I went to the train show at Will Rogers this morning and it was most enjoyable as we saw many familiar faces.  I had to work Sunday afternoon, so overall it ended up being a day with no train pictures taken.  Luckily I saved these shots from Saturday afternoon when Judy and I drove up to Saginaw after the rock and gem show.  I wanted to visit the 24-hour train watching event and deliver some prints to Brian Tindle, but we did not have much time before a dinner appointment with friends.  As we got off of I820, I heard the BNSF 5966 North leaving North Fort Worth siding, so we headed down to the Meacham Boulevard overpass for a picture.  Naturally the sun went behind a cloud only seconds before the train’s arrival.

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