Late Sunday afternoon the draw of a special grain train on the BNSF caused myself and John Briggs, Brian Tindle and Randy Nelson to come together in the southwest quadrant of Tower 55. As railfan luck would have it, our grain train of interest got a knuckle right behind the Amtrak maintenance shack. Fearing we had grabbed defeat from the jaws of victory, we were encouraged when Amtrak personnel quickly helped the BNSF crew replace the knuckle as the stopped train had Amtrak 822 blocked in at the depot with departure time approaching. Then the UP terminal dispatcher took the grain train’s signal back so he could run a MFWSA train from west to south around the wye in front of us. Soon the view of our quarry was blocked as the UP 4310 South came around the curve with silent Tower 55 in the background.
One of the seven units in the consist was ex-Missouri Pacific GP38-2 640, showing no visible signs of its heritage other than the lack of dynamic brakes.
The train behind was huge, and the next example of UP heritage I spotted was this old Southern Pacific “Golden State” service covered hopper.
While we were talking a few dozen or so cars later I saw this Chicago & North Western hopper car still showing all its original reporting marks.
Soon the rear end of the MFWSA cleared the crossover just south of us, and with just enough sun left to do the job, our grain train got a green board onto the BNSF Fort Worth Sub and started to pull towards our photo line.
