Saturday afternoon October 30th the weather was great so I decided to get out around home and see if I could catch some FWWR action on the Dublin Sub. Friends alerted me that a turn out of Dublin was on its way to Cresson so I headed south to Granbury to try for a drone shot crossing the Brazos River at Lake Granbury. Southbound Highway 377 was closed south of Cresson due to an oversize load getting stuck, so I took FM roads west and south to Granbury. I arrived with about twenty minutes to spare to launch the drone for this acceptable view at 3:22 pm.
The train was going to do some switching at the north end of Waples Siding which is in the country north of Granbury. The lighting angle was bad here for a late afternoon northbound train but I took the shot anyway as they pulled to a stop on the main.
To older generation railfans such as myself, one of the best sounds in today’s world of exhaust muffled locomotives is the raw sound of a trio of turbocharged 645 prime movers throttling up and down while switching. I launched the drone again for an overhead view of the work being performed.
When the train departed I drove ahead to Cresson with no traffic issues and was waiting as they approached the yard on the west side of town with better lighting.
The crew set out their train in the new yard east of Highway 377, and I planned to fly the drone once more to catch their return train traversing the big curve just west of the Vista frac sand complex. Once I launched the drone I decided the curve was too treed in to suit my liking, so I decided to catch it passing the plant itself. As it turned out they had no return cars and would be rolling back to Dublin with just light engines.
Packing up the drone, I stopped off by the yard office to record this view with a partial reflection of the silent power laid over until a job would go on duty Sunday afternoon.
Happy with the results here I was back home in less than 15 minutes to end a great Saturday afternoon.
