Tuesday Sep 30 2008
As we rolled along silently and smoothly on welded rail over concrete ties, every minute brought a new view of the eastern Nebraska countryside between Kennard and Blair. Sit back and enjoy.
Monday Sep 29 2008
I called this the rear view mirror in several earlier posts, but I suppose it would be more accurate to call it the forward view mirror on the observation car St. Louis in this case. East of Fremont, Nebraska on the ex-C&NW around the town of Arlington we encountered a series of curves that let me put it to good use on August 29th as we rolled east towards St. Paul. First up was a fairly sharp curve.
Next up was a short stretch of fairly straight track curving in the distance.
And finally a long shallow curve that revealed almost all of the train ahead.
More and more we left the flat farm lands of Nebraska behind as we got closer to Iowa.
Sunday Sep 28 2008
Brian Tindle called this morning to pass the word that a westbound intermodal train had just left Dallas with three NS units for power. This in itself is not all that rare these days, but he peaked my interest when he told me all three were conventional cab units. That is fairly unusual around here with intermodal service dominated by newer wide cab locomotives. I gathered up my gear and headed over to a spot on Vickery Boulevard east of the yard where I could see the train coming down the hill from Tower 55 towards Davidson Yard. When I spotted the train about a quarter past noon I was able to jump ahead and stop on the shoulder of the overpass to get this picture with the Fort Worth skyline in the background.
Since this train originated in Dallas, there would be no crew change at the yard, so the race was on for one more photo in Benbrook. The 40mph speed limit for the train through the Santa Fe bypass and my good fortune in catching all the traffic lights green let me get to the open area around the Benbrook house track with a few minutes to spare. I was ready when the ”Z” train raced by at 60mph on its way to the west coast with an EMD SD70 sandwiched between two GE units.
Thanks for the call Brian!
Saturday Sep 27 2008
Monday we’ll get back on the Whistlestop ‘08 train and continue our journey from August 29th. This Saturday evening I headed out about thirty minutes before sunset to see what I could find nearby at Iona on the Baird Sub in the way of low-light shots. I had heard the dispatcher earlier tell a westbound it would be at Weatherford for several eastbounds, so I knew my chances were good. I did not have to wait long at the east switch as the UP 7704 East rolled by at 6:40pm with a merchandise train in tow.
