On Wednesday August 11th I began a week long trip to cover the UP 4014 in Oklahoma and Texas for the UP Texoma and Houston Service Units . My first stop was in Roanoke to pick up old friend Troy Minnick who would be my co-driver. We had a list of potential photo locations to check out on the way north to McAlester where we would spend the night before driving further north Thursday morning to intercept the 4014 north of Muskogee. As would be expected we encountered several trains in the course of the day.
The first catch of the day was a parked Loram ditch cleaner DC-7 in Aubrey north of Denton.
A few minutes later at 2:12 pm the northbound Fort Worth to Denison “super local” train passed by us with three SD70M’s up front.
On the rear end was a box car from which the drawbar had been pulled out of hile it was on another train the previous day. We assumed it would be repaired in Denison.
Only a few miles further north at Pilot Point the MFWDM took the siding for a southbound loaded coal train which we caught climbing the southbound hill through town at 2:31 pm.
After hearing another southbound coming to Pilot Point on the radio, Troy and I drove to the grade crossing close to the north end of the siding where we photographed this one unit train at 2:49 pm meeting the MFWDM.
A northbound special movement of three oversized vessels had been waiting at Mingo siding in Denton and at 3:15 pm we let this train catch up to us at Collinsville.
After this photo opportunity we did not catch any more trains as we scouted locations all the way up to McAlester. We pulled into town just before 6:30 pm and found two parked Arkansas & Oklahoma units down by their office on the east side of the UP diamond. Ex-Army EMD SW8 number 2010 was parked on the AOK / UP interchange and I framed it up with the old Aldridge Hotel in the background.
A block to the east ex-BNSF B40-8 number 4098 named “Wyatt” was parked and silent in the growing evening shadows.
This was our final shot for Wednesday and next it was time to check in to our motel and get dinner before resting up to start our Big Boy chase the next day.
