FL9

I stopped by the dispatcher’s office where the FWWR has installed a new Railcomm computer-based Track Warrant Control Dispatch system.  In this photo on the left you can see one of the three flat screens that covers the whole railroad, while on the right is the old magnetic board that had been in use up until now.

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Things were fairly quiet railroad-wise around Fort Worth on Sunday the 28th, so when the radio alerted me to the UP ZMQLA train pulling down to the west end of Davidson Yard I headed that way too.  The crews were changing and a green signal was already lit when I passed by, so I set up at River Bend Boulevard, the first crossing west of the yard.  As it turned out I had plenty of time as a computer problem delayed the crew in getting their paperwork to leave town.  While I was waiting, fortunately I had the 400mm lens on my camera as a local hawk suddenly appeared overhead practicing its maneuvers.

Check out those claws and heavily-muscled legs!

Now I know how these flying mouse traps can easily get a death grip on small animals.  The hawk grew bored of my attenton and moved on a few minutes before the UP 7741 West appeared around the curve and accelerated up the grade past me on the way to Sweetwater.

As the rear of the train cleared the crossing I headed on up to the FWWR dispatcher’s office nearby.

We’ll take a break from cold and snowy Abo Canyon in early December to catch up on a few current photos from Sunday the 28th.  I had a few photos to deliver to FWWR personnel at Hodge Yard, and I stopped off at the UP Davidson Yard engine facility on the way where I found two patched Cotton Belt GP60’s.  Note the two different stencils used.

On the west end of Hodge Yard by Deen Road I came across GP50 2010 leading GP38-3’s 2001, 2003 and 2000 on the 101 job shoving cars into the yard.

After dropping off my package at Hodge I started towards the FWWR dispatcher’s office in the Ridglea Bank Tower, but the radio led me off course.

Back in the December 9th blog post I shared a photo taken at 8:05am at the western most bridge in Abo Canyon at milepost 874.2 during a rare heavy snow storm.  Construction activities were suspended for the day, so BNSF project engineers David Miller and Jeff Malloy accompanied me on a tour of the job site.  After the first photo of the barely visible BNSF 7408 East on the SLHTCLO1 train, we headed east up the canyon. The following four photos are just a few of the many trains that ran on Tuesday the 9th.

I had to cut in the four-wheel drive on the Pilot to make it to the top of a short and steep hill at milepost 873.4 as the BNSF 4685 East came up behind us leading the HBARTEA1 train.  The snow has let up some now allowing a better view of the train and landscape.

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