FL9

This past Saturday afternoon The FWWR’s Tolar Turn called at 3:00pm was supposed to be powered by new SD40’s 2015 and 2016, and I decided on a looking-down view from the Hemphill Street overpass.  I left the house at 3:00pm, and while driving east on Vickery I saw a headlight coming my way out of the new bypass tracks on the south side of Davidson Yard.  I pulled across the overpass at the west end of the yard just in time for this shot as the hot ZNSLC train started its journey towards Sweetwater.

I made it to Hemphill in plenty of time to hear that the Tolar Turn had been delayed and the Grapevine passenger train would come first on its run to Eighth Avenue from the Stockyards.  The 2199 was giving it everything it had when it reached to bottom of the hill just below me.

The drainage channel on the left has just been rebuilt here offering a better view of trains coming around the curve just south of the UP mainline overpass above the FWWR.  The Tolar Turn was delayed enough the passenger train was able to return to the Stockyards just as the Turn was crossing Tower 60.  John Briggs had now joined me on the overpass, and we watched the clouds as we waited.  At 4:45pm I heard a horn approaching from the north, but it was a Leslie SL3 instead of the Nathan K3LA I was expecting to hear.  I told John I bet they had put GP50 2012 on the point of the 70-car train, and my expected SD40 picture went up in smoke as I was proven right a few seconds later.

To add insult to injury, the sun went behind a cloud just seconds before the train filled the frame.  I did manage to get reasonable overhead views of first SD40-2 #2015,

and then of SD40R #2016.

The cloud situation did not look like it would improve, so I headed back home.  The SD40 leading shot taken from the Hemphill overpass will have to wait until another day.