FL9

We’ll be taking a few days hiatus from the Montana trip blogs as I want to devote the proper amount of time to their composition.  We will see a few days of old slides as Judy and I are packing tonight so we can drive down to Palestine on Friday to attend this weekend’s (last?) Texas State Railroad railfan weekend.  Hopefully I will have a few good steam shots for you next week.

Now for Thursday night we will step back to a time in the early 1970’s shortly after the inception of Amtrak.  I was a high school student in Ardmore, Oklahoma when I took this first shot on July 8th in 1972 from the 5th Street overpass.  Train 16 is still known as the Texas Chief, but now instead of warbonnet F-units, now it is pulled by ratty-looking ex-UP E-9’s with all their logos removed.

Now once again from the 5th Street overpass almost two years later on June 1st in 1974, the power on train 16 looks considerably better in the form of two nearly new SDP40F’s.  I’m not sure why #523 has two different number boards.

Now back to cleaning my camera equipment for what I hope will be a great weekend.