FL9

On the morning of Sunday August 12th Judy and I woke up in Dyersburg, TN to clear skies and cooler weather.  After breakfast and check out we drove downtown to view the picturesque courthouse square.

(Read on …)

The NS and KCS and UP have joined forces to establish a new high-speed freight corridor between Atlanta and Dallas via the KCS’s Meridian Speedway.  As part of this on August 28th the three railroads operated an inspection train out of Atlanta that tied up at Jackson, MS on the Speedway that evening.  Yesterday on August 29th the train operated over the KCS from Jackson to Shreveport where it left the Speedway and ran over the ex-T&P to UP’s Dallas Intermodal Terminal (DIT).  I left work at lunch and Troy Minnick and I drove east hoping to beat the special to Big Sandy and follow it back to Dallas.  With assistance from David Hawkins monitoring the train’s progress our chances looked good.  We started to follow the UP’s Dallas Sub east from Terrel, and kept a close watch on the clouds that were starting to form.  We heard an eastbound go into the hole at Grand Saline to meet a westbound, so we set up at a grade crossing close to the west end of the siding.  Within minutes we were rewarded with the shot of the UP 4088 West racing by us at 60mph through the woods.

(Read on …)

My wife Judy and I along with our lab Molly left Benbrook eastbound for West Virginia at around 7:00am on August 11th.  After driving 1200 some odd miles we would visit my son for several days before making the return trip.  We made good time on I30 and then I40 all day before turning north in Memphis towards our first night’s stop in Dyersburg, TN.  We arrived around 6:00pm after covering 600 miles for the day, and after checking in and leaving Judy and Molly to rest up before eating, I headed out to find the ex-Illinois Central now Canadian National mainline from Chicago to New Orleans.  I heard a detector go off on the radio, and with help from the GPS found my way through the old and winding streets to the tracks on the north side of town.  The CN 2690 South was approaching on one of the two tracks as I set up at this sunny location.

(Read on …)

Ater working on the house last Sunday morning, I decided to get out in the afternoon for a bit more photography before work on Monday.  I picked up Danny Sisson along the way, and the first thing we found was a BNSF work train tied down in the middle siding at Birds south of Tower 55.  The train was facing northbound with the BNSF B40-8W #504 leading and an old green ex-BN SD40-2 trailing, but the middle unit was the catch.  CN SD60F #5556 is a long way from home.

The rear view of this “Draper Taper” unit offered the slightly better sun angle.

Heading further south we encountered Amtrak #22 coming into town at the West Butler Street crossing.  A small memorial in the foreground indicates someone was not so lucky at this spot, be it pedestrian or driver.

Moving south of I20 we crossed the Altamesa overpass over the BNSF and looked back north to see a southbound headlight in the distance.  We turned south on Crowley Road and made good time to a location I like on the west side of the tracks halfway down the Crowley siding alongside south Magnolia Street.  A few minutes later the southbound train chasing us turned out to be a loaded coal highballing through town with a new GEVO on the point.

The trailing unit was also a very new GEVO.

Driving from Crowley back to Fort Worth did not yield any more photo opportunities, so I dropped Danny off and went home to prepare for Monday.