When I was catching up the blog entries to date yesterday and today, I overlooked October 9th when my young friend Ethan Whetstone was in town from Oklahoma for a visit. I met Ethan and his grandmother on Arizona Street southeast of Tower 55 Saturday morning with a list of potential good catches for the day. Ethan wanted to railfan with me for several hours so we left Broadway looking for new catches while his grandmother headed home.
First up was a westbound UP intermodal that had the UP 1943 as the trailing unit on the head end of the train. For the best light this time of day we made a quick drive to what is left of East Yard literally just east of Tower 55. At 10:44 am I photographed Ethan waving at the train just before he got his photo and I took my going-away view.
Back at Arizona Street a northbound UP train was stopped in the Ney Bypass at 10:58 am.
With nothing else moving in the immediate area, we decided to drive north to the Trinity River bridges for for two special southbound trains. One was the Heartland Flyer “Big Game Train” and the second was a BNSF freight led by one of their 25th Anniversary Units, number 6179. Along the way we paused at Cold Springs Road to record a southbound UP rock train from Chico at 11:44 stopped on the Gauntlet Track for a crew change.
We parked on the east side of the Trinity River Bridges and walked over to wait in the shade for developments. We did not have to wait for long as at 12:08 pm a southbound local off the UP Duncan Sub pulled past us into the north end of Peach Yard led by two SD40N’s and an SD70M.
We were standing in place for the Heartland Flyer when a southbound TEXRail went by at 12:22 pm.
Two minutes later the seven car Flyer with a “Big Game” decaled unit on each end rolled across the BNSF bridge.
A little over 20 minutes later the southbound loaded grain train with BNSF 6179 leading came past our location. The locomotive had just recently participated in a special event in Wichita, KS so it was very clean.
Next I took this view of Ethan as he got ready to photograph the single DPU shoving the train up the grade to Tower 55.
With the important trains caught here we decided to go and catch some action on the TRE line. Just west of the Richland HIlls Station we caught this westbound TRE at 1:17 pm in good light.
At 2:05 pm an eastbound TRE on approach to the Richland Hills Station came past us at speed with Fort Worth visible in the background.
We moved on up to the station itself for the next two trains. When a westbound TRE stopped at 2:16 pm I could not resist my Trinity Metro background and first caught it in the same frame with a connecting bus.
I made sure we were ready at 2:30 pm when Amtrak 22 the Texas Eagle zipped by at 79 mph track speed.
For our last set of photos for the day we drove to Benbrook and camped out at the house track on the UP Baird Sub. This day’s UP ZAILC intermodal train had three Norfolk Southern’s, one KCS and one UP for power and Ethan did not want to miss it. He got his wish at 3:49 pm with this mixed set of units heading west.
We heard on the radio there was an eastbound merchandise train at Iona to meet the “Laser” so we waited for this view even though by now the angle was quite back lit. Six UP units up front did indeed add some interest.
Two EMD SD70ACe’s working as DPU’s mid-train rounded out the power for this long train.
At this point I needed to get back home so we met Ethan’s grandmother at Boaz Park just a mile away to end a very good railfan day!
