Monday Jul 31 2006
Good Luck at Judd on July 31st
Last Friday after work my wife and I headed out for Sweetwater to see my father. The light was perfect for a westbound on the UP Baird Sub, but the radio was quiet all the way past Weatherford. When we approached the exit on I20 at the east end of the siding at Judd, I decided to take chance and see if anything was in evidence before heading on west. This gamble paid off in that I could see an eastbound BNSF stack train in the siding pulled up to the east end about two hundred yards away.
The westbound signal was dark, but that did not mean much as it is approach lit these days with about a two minute warning as opposed to the 15 minutes you used to get. I quickly put on the 100-400 Canon zoom as Judy got Molly our border lab out for a stretch, and when I looked back up the westbound signal was green now. I barely had time to get into position on the south side before the UP 5077 and three other units came around the long S-curve, never slacking off the throttle.
He roared on by, and I could tell from the large number of UPS trailers and his speed this was probably the ZNSLC. His rear end soon flashed by the BNSF train as the conductor gave his his roll by from the ground.
The westbound signal went from red to dark again, but the eastbound did not move. There was no word on the radio after the highball, so I figured another westbound must be close behind the “Z” train. This proved to be true as after a few minutes the westbound signal lit up again. I moved back to the north side of the tracks with the 24-105 zoom in place for this shot of another UP stack train rolling west in the “Z” train’s wake.
Now indeed it was the BNSF train’s turn, and he whistled off as the smoke rose over his three units when they started the train. The plume had died down by the time he passed me at the crossing, still accelerating.
I did not count cars, but he was extremely long, and must have filled the 10,000-foot Judd siding nearly to capacity. The show as over, so we packed up Molly and continued on uneventfully to Sweetwater.
