This dreary February 12th morning dawned both cold and rainy, but there was a special Union Pacific inspection train heading west on the Baird Sub so I decided to catch it in Aledo before lunch. While the special was changing crews the Baird Sub dispatcher ran a westbound ZMNLA (Marion, AR to Los Angeles) ahead of it out of Fort Worth.
Around thirty minutes later just before 11:00 am the UP inspection train led by SD70ACe #1111 pulling nine cars rolled through Aledo.
Since the train was just coming out of a 25 mph slow order I had time to get multiple photos.
The two small flat antennas behind the cab facing the rear are part of a wireless video system to send the picture from a front facing camera in the cab back to a TV monitor in the theater car Idaho bringing up the rear. You can see the pair of receiving antennas in the last photo.
The train was traveling at a pretty good clip when the Idaho came by.
If the weather had been better I would have considered chasing the train further west. As it was, I next went to the Aledo Cafe for a good lunch with a view of the tracks as two more westbound intermodals rolled by in the rain.
