Today, Wednesday January 27th was forecast to be the last day of full sun for the next few days; so after yesterday evening’s drone success I decided to try again this morning. Around 9:30 am I heard the UP ZAILC “Laser” intermodal was leaving Fort Worth, so I quickly drove over to the middle of Iona siding where the track curves to the southwest for about 1/2 mile. This is one of the few spots a westbound train in the morning is not coming out of the sun, and I managed a decent broadside at 9:57 am.
It was nice to see this hot train led by an older generation EMD SD70M which is unusual these days. I heard the Laser was going into the siding at Earls to meet a roughly 13,000 foot eastbound Big Spring to Fort Worth merchandise train. Not a normal meet for the ZAILC, but the dispatcher had no choice due to the super-long eastbound.
I decided to wait for the east man and used the drone again to catch it entering the curve just east of the west end of the lengthened Iona siding. The train had three units up front and two more 2/3 of the way back in the train.
The day was not over yet as I had intel there was a southbound grain train on the BNSF with a CSX unit leading and another working as the DPU. After lunch at home I drove over to Joshua and caught CSX ES44AH number 832 passing the north end of the siding.
In hopes that the CSX unit working as the DPU was facing out from the train, I rapidly drove to the north side of the signals. A few minutes later I was fortunate to capture this view as CSX 903 facing the right way for me passed the signboard and control signal.
By this time Amtrak 21 had left Fort Worth and the dispatcher told the grain train they would be going into the siding at Rio Vista to let Amtrak overtake them. I decided to reuse the same angle I had chosen for the first photo of the grain train and was ready at 2:37 pm when these day’s normal P42 and five coaches raced through town.
The chill was not pleasant due to windy conditions in spite of the sun, so since no other trains were close by I decided four trains was enough for today and packed it in.
