Saturday February 13th was bright and sunny in contrast to the snow storm only two days earlier. My wife along with my older stepson and his girlfriend went to lunch just after noon in downtown Fort Worth. I had been give a heads up that the MP heritage SD70Ace would be leaving around 2:00pm on the MFWEC, so I made sure I had my camera in the SUV. After we finished eating I started a slow roll back towards Benbrook via Davidson Yard, but almost immediately saw the cars of a manifest train coming up the grade towards Tower 55. The power had already gone by and any view of it was blocked by the I30 overpasses, but I had a feeling and turned back towards Tower 55.
My wife noticed the change in course immediately, but I said they were being kidnapped so just keep up the conversation and they would be released soon. Sure enough when we caught up to the head end stopped under I30 just west of the tower the lead unit was the UP 1982. I drove on to the southwest corner of the Barnhart Wye and had my three passengers remain in the SUV while I put on my PPE. Listening to the UP terminal dispatcher we learned that Amtrak 22 would be arriving from Cleburne in a few minutes and the MFWEC would be allowed to go south after that and ahead of Amtrak 21 departing for Cleburne. Sure enough less than five minutes later a nice K5LA preceeded the arrival of number 22 with P42 89 doing the honors.
I took another shot after the rear end cleared the view of Tower 55.
I joined the conversation in the SUV until a few more minutes passed, and then photographed the UP 1982 coming around the corner in perfect light on its way to Ney Yard. The engineer spied the females in the Pilot and gave a number of short blasts on the K5LAA as he and the conductor waved.
Just as soon as the last car cleared the switch to the BNSF mainline behind me the points threw and Amtrak 21 got the signal to proceed.
P42 number 97 was leading the southbound Texas Eagle on this trip.
The excitement done for now, so I took my gear off and put us back on course for home. My wife and the others were pleasantly surprised that they had a good time watching trains since I kept it brief and did not obsess……
One Comment
Obsession is not just a cologne!
Of course you could always remind them of the penalty non-compliance brings.