On February 10th in 2022 while Judy rested in our motel room, I went out and completed my work assignment. Afterwards I caught a few train photos that I will now share. Normally I am not a fan of railcar graffiti, but sometimes the artist shows signs of actual talent such as with this grain hopper parked near Becker between Abo Canyon and Belen.
At 11:59 am here is a drone view west of Becker looking west towards Belen approximately twelve miles away along the Rio Grande River.
At 12:35 pm the drone is still west of Becker, but now looking northeast at the Manzano Mountains as a westbound runs off its last miles to Belen.
Heading back towards Mountainair I spotted another westbound coming out of Abo Canyon, so I drove east from the Highway 47 grade crossing to record its passing.
The lead unit number 1096 was an older C44-9W from the late 1990’s repainted in the H3 paint scheme.
The second unit was also an older locomotive from the late 1990’s, a Dash 9-44CW still in its original red warbonnet paint.
My wife and I went out for an early dinner and then I drove over to the overpass just west of the Mountainair depot around 4:30 pm in hopes of catching a westbound train going past the station in good afternoon light. After listening to the radio for a bit, I was able to discern that a westbound train was coming on Main Two (the right track in this photo) while an eastbound was coming upgrade out of Abo Canyon on Main One (the left track in this photo). I was increasingly concerned if the eastbound arrived first it would block my view of the westbound passing the depot.
I could hear the eastbound coming slowly up the grade now and kept a vigil for the westbound hoping it would sweep around the curve before the eastbound came into the picture. There were not any more westbounds near enough to be here before dark so this was it. I could now see the headlights of the eastbound behind me inching up the hill and my anxiety level rose with My anxiety level increased proportionately with its progress. Still no westbound in sight, but just as I thought I was done when the head end of the eastbound appeared out from the underpass next to me, suddenly there was a familiar loud whoosh of an emergency brake application and the train quickly ground to a halt.
The crew immediately called the dispatcher that their train was in emergency but did not know why it had happened. I could have told them it was because they were about to ruin my photo! The conductor climbed down to start walking back and check the rest of the units and the train looking for the cause. The dispatcher contacted the westbound that was now only about two miles away and told them to slow to restricted speed as they passed the eastbound to be safe.
I rethought my photo using my 24-105 mm zoom. Now not only could I get my desired photo of the westbound passing the depot at 105 mm, all I had to do after that was zoom back to around 24 mm to capture the depot and both trains meeting in the frame. At 4:58 pm I followed that plan.
I am happy with the results, but what do you think? I headed back to the room so my wife and I could do some exploring in the morning.
