FL9

After Dan and Ralph from the Star-Telegram left us on Saturday afternoon, John and David and I were next graced with a visit from a loaded UP coal train off of the Wichita Falls Sub.

We shot his DPU entering the yard with the Saginaw sign reminding everyone of the current dry conditions.

A few minutes later we saw the observation end of BNSF’s track geometry car #85 as it backed through the diamonds at Saginaw.

Car 85 was converted into a track geometry car in 1974, and was originally Santa Fe business car #39 as built in 1926 by the Pullman Company.  Its sensor laden three-axle trucks can test for defects while travelling at up to 70 mph, but today this ex-BN GP50 is slowly pushing the 85 and its companion into Saginaw Yard to tie up for the night.

Half an hour later our next move was an eastbound BNSF intermodal off the Wichita Falls Sub headed down to North Yard.  Our guess was this train would head east over the TRE or UP to Dallas to be handed over to the KCS.

It did not sound like anything else was close around Saginaw while things were getting busy north of Alliance, so we piled in the car and headed in that direction.  We spotted a northbound vehicle train holding south of Lambert and then a yellow over yellow signal southbound at Justin, so we set up on the side of Route 156 south of Ponder.  Soon we were rewarded with this southbound intermodal off of the KCS headed for Alliance Yard.

As soon as this intermodal cleared Lambert, the empty vehicle train pulled north towards Ponder for a meet with the WSPALT that was just arriving at Metro to exchange with the KCS.  We caught the vehicle train at the West Strader Road crossing before heading on to Metro.

We arrived at West Wye just as the KCS was starting to pull away towards Dallas, so we passed on the WSPALT for now and headed over to the Ganzer Road crossing to catch this picture as the KCS train passed MP 110.

The WSPALT started south towards the meet at Ponder as we were taking this KCS shot, so we headed back to Highway 156 and got ahead of him before he reached Ponder. 

His second and third units were both unique, so we passed on the meet at Ponder and got ahead of him again for these side views at the north end of Justin.  The middle unit was ex-GN SDP40 #6327 that I shot recently out at Sweetwater.

The trailing unit was Montana Rail Link #344, an SD45 that started life as the Rio Grande #5317.

We heard Amtrak train 822 coming up to Lambert to meet the WSPALT, so we dropped back to West Strader Road for this picture of cab car 90229 and three cars being shoved north on their way to Oklahoma City.  It may be an out-of-tune new casting horn, but the Nathan P5 on the 90229 was still a welcome change to the ears.

We next made our way back to Saginaw where we caught this view of SD45-2 #6504 as he pulled a cut of cars northbound past the “Welcome to Saginaw” marker.

Up at the diamonds we found a pair of locomotives switching the flour mill.

We thought we might get a side by side shot, but the BNSF switchers pulled north up their mainline just before this northbound UP manifest train on the Duncan Sub crossed the diamonds headed for Wichita, KS.

What had been a few random clouds in the northwest now quickly formed into a line of thunderstorms that would soon block out the sun for the rest of the day.  There was a loaded coal train holding north of CP 11 on the Wichita Falls Sub, so we decided to make that the last train for today.  John and I both used our flashes to highlight the reflective decals on the new GEVO leading the train.

One last wide angle picture takes in the whole scene, including the building storm front that several hours later will bring a welcome inch of rain to our yard in Benbrook.

Tomorrow I will share my pictures from Sunday.