FL9

On the morning of Thursday the 15th I took a drive down to Cresson and Cleburne to gather a few current photographs for my presentation on the FWWR coming up on Saturday the 17th at the Bush Library in College Station.  The Barnett Shale has had a huge effect on traffic, such that in 2007 the total car count should be around 40,000 of which 10,000 are related to the local gas and oil drilling frenzy.  Highway 377 to Cresson and 174 from there to Cleburne are crowded these days with truck traffic, and new industries on line have prompted the FWWR to set up a yard office in Cresson with two switch jobs based there.  Just outside Cleburne I stopped to photograph the new Key sand plant being switched by a Trackmobile.

A short distance to the west is the Frac Tech sand plant with capacity for over 100 cars.

In Godley a contract crew from Trackworks was busy laying out and then inserting new ties.

Back in Cresson two GP50’s with a leased GP7 sandwiched in between had just finished switching a local sand plant and were heading back towards the yard west of highway 377.

The Cresson Job next headed towards Henson Lumber to the east, and I used it for as a backdrop when I photographed the newly rebuilt wye leading from the Dublin Sub to the Cleburne Sub allowing the big new SD40’s to use this section of track.

The 2010 was busy spotting two cars in the lumber company when I stopped by.

After visiting with the crew for a few minutes, I headed back home to finish up my presentation including these illustrations of progress.