Dublin resident Robert Seale has long complained that Fort Worth & Western does not run enough trains through his town to suit him, but as of today that should change for him. While the FWWR had turned down several offers recently to buy the entire railroad, secret negotiations have been successfully concluded to sell the Dublin Sub to the BNSF. Originally sold off by the Santa Fe in 1994 as no longer being viable to operate under then current plans, changing traffic patterns made BNSF’s Matt Rose take a second look at the hilly and curvy line.
The ex-BN line from Saginaw to Amarillo has become overcrowded in recent years with coal and intermodal trains in competition with each other. The trackage rights agreement with the UP over the Baird Sub from Fort Worth to Sweetwater limits the number of trains BNSF can run each day. Those two factors made the route from Fort Worth through Dublin to Brownwood then Sweetwater and west to Clovis a desirable route for scheduled intermodal trains to and from the west coast as it once was under the Santa Fe. Coal and merchandise trains will continue to move over the ex-BN line to Amarillo.
The goal is to reroute four intermodal trains in each direction to the Dublin Sub in the next year. Fort Worth & Western has been retained to operate local overhead freight service to existing customers, and FWWR dispatchers will control the line for the time being as plans are studied to reactivate the Dublin Sub’s CTC system using modern technology and move dispatching functions back to the BNSF “bunker” in Fort Worth. An eastbound intermodal train from Clovis to Alliance was run this morning to signal the closing of the sale, seen here passing through Dublin.
Time to get trackside all you photographers! Remember today’s date!
5 Comments
Ken,
Is this April Fool’s Day????
–Steve
And Schmo is being enlisted to return as the line’s “orficial photographer”!
Ken, it’d be halfway believeable if the traffic wasn’t so bad that the BNSF pulled their overhead traffic off the Baird sub recently. . .
Yup, pig trains will run as will coal trains pulled by Baldwin Centipedes
Passing off an image from 8/2004 as one from 4/1/2009 will get your internet credentials revoked.
BTW, word is you will be blowing your own horn(s) this weekend ….
I think it would have been more believable and caused more of a stir if you had said KCS had bought the Texas Pacifio down to the border crossing at Presidio and obtained overhead trackage rights on the FWWR. Then later the same day said Canadian Pacific had entered into talks with KCS to discuss a buyout of their railroad. Oh man oh man, that would have stirred the pot!!!!