Thursday Jul 20 2006
An Opportune Slow Order on July 20th
Thursday afternoon I delivered a bunch of prints for FWWR employees at Hodge Yard, and it was shortly after the beginning of the 5:00pm rush hour when I headed back out onto the streets. The radio was active with news of a northbound train on the BNSF with a CSX engine leading on the approach to Saginaw while Amtrak 822 was just leaving the station behind him. DS22 told the freight all the sidings were full, so he would be going to Justin to let Amtrak around him. I started north up FM 156 from Blue Mound thinking I would beat them easily to the Alliance area for a shot with the favorable northbound light.
At least that would have been the case several years ago when I did this regularly before all the new housing developments and traffic lights. Thought of catching either train faded rapidly as I inched along in bumper to bumper traffic no better than diving downtown. This is when possible salvation smiled as the radio informed me of a 10 mph slow order over the diamonds at Saginaw, and the northbound freight was over 6000 feet long with Amtrak plodding along in his wake. Now as I moved on up into Haslet and traffic began to thin, it looked like I was going to pull victory out of the jaws of defeat thanks to the slow order.
I pulled over to the side of Highway 156 north of Alliance’s Eagle Parkway besides a long, open stretch of track. Soon I was joined by the CSX 7847 North as he headed towards the siding at Justin.
I moved back south about 1/4 of a mile to the bridge over a usually dry creek that still sports a nice Santa Fe herald, one of several in this area. Will this stretch of track and its scenic bridges be abandoned north of the new runway expansion coming in the near future? Better get your shots of through trains now to be safe. In a few minutes Amtrak 822 glided by on his delayed trip to Oklahoma City.
Nothing else sounded to be close by, so I started home via Saginaw. I arrived at the diamonds just as the UP welding crew that was my salvation left their parked truck and walked across the street to El Sombrero for dinner. I suppose I could have offered to buy for them, but I wasn’t sure they would understand. Appropriately enough, a northbound UP on the Duncan Sub was next on DS22’s list to pass over the slow order.
I’m getting tired of all this new stuff myself, so tomorrow we’ll go back to the time machine.
