Those words gleaned from social media regarding a westbound intermodal that would traverse the UP Baird Subdivision close to home on May 25, 2024, had me getting my camera equipment ready the evening before. The next day with the train predicted to leave Fort Worth a bit after noon time, I set up next to the Baird Sub in Annetta North just east of Weatherford. The UP sent a merchandise train out of Fort Worth ahead of the NS 1074 West and this train passed me at 1:06 pm with a grimy rebuilt C44ACM leading.
The target train arrived at 1:32 pm and I recorded the following sequence.
It would have been nice if the NS 1074 had been washed recently, but that is not the case under Precision Scheduled Railroading. I decided to catch this train one more time at the east end of Judd Siding west of Weatherford and beat it there by about twenty minutes. I started this sequence at 3:06 pm with my Canon 100-400 mm L zoom on a Canon 7D Mark II body to hopefully capture a good view with the ridge in the background and a closeup of the nose.
With the train running at around 50 mph, I quickly switched to my Canon 5D Mark IV body and a 24-105 mm L zoom for these three final shots.
Now heading back home, just east of Weatherford at the Annetta Centerpoint Road crossing I encountered another westbound intermodal train with two units up front.
Two-thirds of the way back in this long train was a single well-worn DPU unit.
This westbound met an eastbound freight at Weatherford that I had passed up earlier for the NS 1074, so I paused at the FM 5 crossing at the intersection with Annetta Centerpoint Road. This train was led by a more recently rebuilt and reasonably clean C44ACM.
This last catch concluded a successful Heritage Unit chase.
