This year I managed to keep my promise to Tommy Shults that I would show up in Flatonia for the April 4th Railfan Pavilion extravaganza with my horn collection. With too much gear to haul by myself and not owning a mobile air compressor, I made a deal with Russ Covitt of Russ Rail Stuff to use some space in his van for the trip and with Troy Minnick to use his air compressor to blow the horns. So with Troy and Russ in the Chevy van and me in my Honda Pilot we left Benbrook early on Friday April 3rd. We highballed down I35 to Temple where we stopped at the depot museum just in time to see Amtrak 22 pull into the station. Even though it was heavily back lit I took a shot of the train featuring AT&SF 4-6-2 on display to illustrate the two visible extremes in passenger train locomotives.
The six-foot fences really get in the way here, and so in trying to be creative I put on my 17mm lens and held the camera over the barrier at arm’s length as Train 22 pulled away from the station on the way to Fort Worth.
The young lady on the left by the old Moody depot had just put her daughter on the train to go to Fort Worth and stopped to watch it leave town.
