Saturday April 15th in 2023 was a nice day in Fort Worth and my friend Ethan Whetstone was in town visiting from Oklahoma. I met Ethan and his grandmother that morning along Arizona Street southeast of Tower 55. I arrived not long before a southbound UP train came around the corner from Davidson Yard at 10:02 am.
At 10:15 am an empty UP coal train rolled north towards Tower 55.
Then we had a gap until 11:42 am when we caught our first BNSF train, a southbound grain train.
With two locomotives up front, this grain train had the expected single DPU shoving on the rear end.
At 12:14 pm I captured Ethan photographing a southbound autorack train.
Next we all relocated to the linear park south of the Trinity River where two cranes are helping to build a second BNSF bridge over the river here. At 12:46 pm at a moment of great timing, a bicycle rider passed by on the Trinity Trail just as the southbound Heartland Flyer passed overhead.
Moments later I heard a new rumble and looked over my shoulder just as a northbound UP train on the Duncan Sub was passing CPT853 Gauntlet Connector.
On the way back to our cars at 12:53 pm an eastbound TEXRail train was about to knock down a green signal on its way towards DFW Airport.
I followed Ethan and his grandmother north to the Saginaw Interlocking where we caught the same UP northbounder as it crossed over the BNSF Fort Worth Sub at grade. This operation has since been replaced as the Interlocker was reconfigured with back-to-back switches for all movements and the diamonds removed.
It was time for me to head back home and I bid my friends farewell until our next visit.
