Yesterday December 16th marked the end of a six-day streak of BNSF power leading the UP’s hot ZAILC Atlanta to Los Angeles “Z” train. BNSF owes UP horsepower hours for their use of UP power, so they have given a number of units to UP to use in return. The ZAILC of the 16th returned to a semi-regular norm of Norfolk Southern power leading with two NS units and two up units on the head end. This happens due to the fact that on the east end the UP’s ZAILC / ZLCAI trains originate on the Norfolk Southern at Atlanta.
Norfolk Southern AC44C6M number 4227 – a product of the rebuild program at the Wabtec Haslet facility – did the honors yesterday when I caught the train in West Annetta. Overcast skies did me a favor as otherwise this morning shot at 10:24 am would be coming out of the sun.
The sun came out for a time yesterday afternoon, just long enough for me to catch this eastbound UP manifest train from Big Spring to Fort Worth passing the signal at milepost 270.5 at 3:21 pm.
This train was over 10,000 feet in length so in addition to the three units up front it had two DPU’s in the middle of the train.
The sun vanished behind the clouds a few minutes later and today on Friday it is still hiding as a cold front and rain approach north Texas.
