FL9

Wednesday I ran an errand downtown at lunch, and my timing proved to be good when I spotted a southbound BNSF ballast and rock train leaving Tower 55.  The lead unit was a CN SD60F pulling the heavy train along with two BNSF SD40-2’s.  I made it down to the south end of Birds in time to catch this sequence of its passing.  Naturally I would have much preferred the nose door be shut, but I’m sure the crew needed the air flow.

Heading back towards I35 when I passed over the Midlothian Sub on Berry Street I looked down and saw a southbound switch job leaving Ney Yard pulled by three UPY Gensets.  The race was on again, and I beat them to Echo Park for this side view.

Looping under I 35 to get on southbound I spotted one more rare gem to my right at the north end of Ney Yard in the form of three Cotton Belt GP60’s.  Unpainted and unpatched, this was too good to pass up so I made a quick detour to the Magnolia Street crossing for this shot.

The three now rare units headed into the yard with a transfer run and I headed back to work with a couple of good catches.

Roddy and I drove north from Tower 60 back through Saginaw and on up to Avondale.  We hoped the BNSF 9375 East would be coming on into town for our cameras, but it was not to be as the dispatcher told the crew there was no room for them at Saginaw for some time to come.  Where the SD70ACe sat at the south end of the Avondale siding was not readily accessible or well lit, so we drove on over to Alliance Yard so Roddy could see the layout.  At the same time we were done checking out the perimeter, an intermodal train announced it was ready to depart for the Wichita Falls Sub.  We set up at the grade crossing south of the yard where we noticed work was well under way to add a second track from the yard down to South Haslet.  The sun did not cooperate, but I still took the shot as the BNSF 4397 South snaked its way around the “S” curve towards out location.

With nothing else close by and the day rapidly winding down, we drove back west to Avondale and then south through a brief downpour towards Saginaw.  The sun came out as we approached Hicks, so we stopped at the crossing to wait for what was now the BNSF 4397 West after making a nearly 180 degree turn at Saginaw onto the Wichita Falls Sub.  What we lacked in sunlight the first time we shot this train 40 minutes earlier was now made up for by this view with a billowing cloud overhead.

The last shot of the day turned out to be the best in my opinion!

Roddy and I drove back to Tower 60 in hopes of catching the northbound UP freight with a KCS leader that John Briggs had called about.  We waited and watched the minutes count down to time for Amtrak 822 to leave Fort Worth on its way to Oklahoma City.  I got out the long zoom to try to get a shot of 822 coming through the truss of the Trinity River bridge.  This turned out to be the right move, but for a different subject as suddenly the restored B-17 that is based out of Meacham Field flew overhead.

The northbound BNSF signal at the FWWR diamond was flashing red, and not having heard 822 get clearance from DS22 to occupy the mainline, I thought we still had plenty of time to get into position.  I was messing around in the back of the truck when the gates started down and cab car #90229 appeared with its Nathan P5 blaring.  Out of position, I settled for this close up of its passage over 23rd street.

Swinging around I framed up the P42 shoving on the rear as the train accelerated away from us.

A horn to the north clued us in that the reason for the restrictive signal was that DS22 had brought a train down from Saginaw to meet 822 at Northside siding.  We quickly repositioned ourselves to the big open space in the linear park on the south side of the Trinity River for this shot of a vehicle train with a single unit for power.

We still had not heard anything about the KCS unit on the radio, but we did hear the Wichita Falls Sub dispatcher talking to the BNSF 9375 East coming to Avondale, so we decided to go back north after the ACe instead.

After an Olympic interlude yesterday, it is time to get back to last Saturday. After catching the Grapevine passenger train, Roddy and I drove on up to Saginaw.  There was a great lashup of three new BNSF Gensets, but they were blocked from a good photo by the parking lot and yard office.  However we were able to nail GP40X #3038 from the shoulder of the road.

The 3038 was the lead unit on a very long Cleburne Local, and we caught all five units approaching the diamonds a few minutes later.

Next the radio took us up to the new connection for a merchandise train coming off the Wichita Falls Sub.  If the sun had been out I would not have attempted this backlit shot at all, but the clouds made it interesting.

John Briggs called to say he was watching a northbound UP train change crews at Ney Yard led by a new KCS GE, so we headed back towards Tower 60 to see if we could catch it and any other action.