FL9

Waking to the sounds of birds singing, I got dressed in the Orange Caboose and stepped out to find the temperature to be a brisk but bearable 26 degrees on Saturday morning.  I looked up at the still dark tree tops and could plainly see a half moon in the clear sky above.

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I mailed my entries today for the Trains Magazine 2006 photo contest, the theme of which is “Against The Elements.”  As I was looking for a slide tonight to share, this one jumped out at me as being appropriate.  Back on June 12th in 1989, Troy Minnick, Scott Speed and myself were out railfanning in the Denton area.

We set up to catch a loaded UP CBTHS coal train climbing the grade south of downtown as a storm front descended on our location.  As the train approached the city storm sirens began to blow, and about that time the dispatcher came over the radio and told the train to stop due to a severe thunderstorm warning that had just been issued in our vicinity.  The sun would occasionally glimmer through the clouds as I braved the downpour under an umbrella to get this picture.

I jumped back in the car, and we were all fortunate that it did not hail or get any worse than the heavy rain and a few strong wind gusts.  Soon the front was past us, and the CBTHS got the all clear to move on.  I only wish I had encountered a thunderstorm as intense as this one was for this year’s contest.

I spent all day yesterday on various projects at home, and by this morning I had made good progress.  I had the radio going in my office, and heard the UP Baird Sub dispatcher tell a westbound train he would be at Weatherford for three eastbounds, and the first one was at Eastland.

No clue as to why he was being held at Weatherford when he could have made it to at least Judd in the time available, but the thought of knowing that three eastbounds with good nose light would be coming through Weatherford in a little over an hour was too tempting.  I decided to take a break, and headed west with my camera bag at the proper time.  MY first stop was the east switch at Weatherford siding, and I only had to wait 15 minutes for the first train led by an SD70M.  I had to shoot from the shadow side to get the best angle on the signal box.

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I hope you are enjoying the Montana Trip saga, but I need to catch up on other projects this weekend so we’ll take a break for a day ot two.  In the spirit of the Montana grades, here is one of our lesser but no less grueling Texas counterparts.  The eastbound climb up from the Red River crossing at Estelline towards Childress is only around 1% compared to the 2% of Marias Pass, but it was always a challenge for loaded coal trains without helpers.

Here on 05/12/90 we see four U30-C’s and an SD40-2 pulling for all they are worth.  Today an even heavier train is normally handled by two AC units on the point and one shoving on the rear.