On Monday June 14th I had photo work to perform for a client in Sweetwater and I left the house later than intended around 7:30 am. While it was dry at home, west of Weatherford it started to rain and as I approached Abilene I heard on the radio there was a severe thunderstorm in the Sweetwater area. Had I left the house on time I would have been right in the middle of it, so being late this time was not a problem. Arriving in Sweetwater I had time to kill until the rain stopped so I drove by the Texas & Oklahoma short line. The crew was adding a GP40 in the middle of their two usual SD40-2 units as they advised me they would have several heavy outbound cement trains from Maryneal that week.
You can see the rain still coming down in buckets.
TXOR 2785 is an SD45 rebuilt to SD40-2 standards while retaining its trademark flared radiators.
Here is one of the Cape and Son locomotives that serve the local transload facility. An ex-IC SD40-2.
I would have liked to photograph the Texas & Oklahoma leaving town but now the rain had stopped and I needed to perform the photo assignment that was the reason for this trip. After I was done the sun was coming out, so after lunch on the way out of town I stopped by the ex-T&P Toyah Sub. An eastbound intermodal was just pulling out heading to Fort Worth after performing a crew change at the modern office building. The well cars in the background were bad order setouts.
This intermodal had one unit up front and one DPU’s about 2/3rd’s of the way back in the train. It met a westbound intermodal that had taken the siding out of sight to the left in this photo.
When the westbound pulled down towards the crew change point I composed this photo with the town name showing up in the background. Note the small family-placed memorial indicating a person tried unsuccessfully to cross here. Always remember to expect a train at any time on any track.
In this going away view you see the foundation of the old depot that once stood here to greet passenger trains between Fort Worth and El Paso.
On the road home I stopped one more time for a panoramic view of the westbound ZAILC hotshot with a thunderstorm behind it as it passes the west end of Putnam siding.
All in all a good day on the road!