This morning Wednesday December 23rd I needed to run a few errands around Aledo and I took the camera along as I was not in a hurry. As I rounded the curve on FM 1187 in the distance I could see double stack cars at rest across the horizon. An eastbound stack train was in the siding so I drove down to the east end of Iona.
Before long on the radio I heard the ZAILC Atlanta to Los Angeles “Laser” leaving Fort Worth behind. I drove back west and set up for a going away view of the laser as it met the eastbound. The conductor was on the ground as the Laser roared by at track speed at 11:17 am.
The westbound had six units up front of which I believe four were online and working hard.
I moved back to the east end of the siding to await developments. That turned out to be another westbound intermodal at 11:29 am with an SD70ACe up front.
The dispatcher rolled the switch over to the siding after the passage of this train, but it was not until 12:16 pm that the eastbound started to move out to the main and on to Davidson Yard.
Looks like the UP 7406 needed some new side doors for some reason.
I heard about another eastbound meeting the two westbound intermodals at Preble west of Weatherford, so I drove on west into Aledo for this view when it arrived at 1:37 pm passing the grain elevator.
Not very far back from the head end was another pair of units in DPU mode.
I did not count but the rear end passed by in short order. It looked like this was two short intermodals coupled together and operated as one train. The crew called a diverging approach at the west end of Iona to take the siding so I stuck around. At 1:55 pm a westbound merchandise train rolled through downtown Aledo past the Church at the Crossing.
This train appeared to be seasonally short and had just one DPU on the rear.
The radio informed me the eastbound in the sinding at Iona was meeting one more westbound before heading on to Fort Worth. One more intermodal zipped westbound passing the other side of the grain elevator at 1:55 pm.
Nothing unusual or rare power wise, but as many times as I have sat by these same tracks for hours and only seen one or two huge trains, today was a welcome exception for a railfan to the PSR blues.
