On August 20th I left home for a three-day round trip to visit a good friend and take care of personal business. I followed the BNSF from Cleburne to Temple and dis manage to catch a few trains. I almost missed the first one, a northbound between Cleburne and Rio Vista. I could see the headlight when I crossed the track at a rural crossing, and had just enough time to compose this going away side view as the train flew by. I did manage to catch the optimal sun angle for morning light.
The second train was another northbound I caught at the northern most crossing in Rio Vista. Once again I had just enough time to park and jump out. I was fortunate to catch this grab shot of one of BNSF’s roving geometry trains inspecting the track for defects.
Moving on I spotted a southbound tied down at the south end of Rio Vista.
Traffic overall was light, and the last train I saw was another southbound tied down in the siding at Moody.
I headed south out of Temple following the UP towards my destination of Smithville where I would spend the night at friend Bruce Blalock’s home before the two of us would drive to Flatonia the next day so I could help another friend. When I arrived there, Bruce had a surprise for me in that we would be attending a NRHS chapter meeting in north Houston. We would be meeting others including friend Clif Jones at the Katy depot museum in LaGrange.
In LaGrange Bruce showed me the Katy caboose he and his wife used to own when they operated a wonderful Bed and breakfast in Smithville. Scenes from the movie “Hope Floats” were filmed there before they retired and the caboose ended up at the depot museum.
A few minutes later as we sat in the depot, a horn could be heard blowing from the west. I jumped up and ran outside to catch a westbound UP empty rock train. I did not have enough time to compose anything better than the photo below with most of the train blocked by the pole and crossing signal, so this scene is on my “try again” list for the future.
It was time to leave for the meeting, and in retrospect we had a great time eating, watching the presentation and visiting with acquaintances. The next morning on August 21st we had some time to kill before driving to Flatonia, so we checked out the UP yard in Smithville and found a southbound heading towards Lockhart and San Marcos. As we just missed it here we drove west to the community of Rosanky where the grain train caught up to us.
Heading back to Smithville we stopped at their park and museum complex on the south side of the yard. This is worth a visit by anyone passing through.
The radio alerted us to another southbound approaching, this time a BNSF train heading for Eagle Pass on trackage rights.
After noon we left Smithville for Flatonia just as an eastbound loaded rock train was also departing for Houston. We headed for LaGrange and set up on the east side of the depot. I could not include a station sign on this side of the depot so I concentrated on the train order signal and the two cabooses including the yellow waycar that used to belong to Bruce.
We made it the rest of the way to Flatonia without encountering any more trains. After we took care of helping a mutual friend and having a late lunch, Bruce and I stopped by the railfan pavilion pioneered by our old friend the late Tommy Shults. This worked out for us and we caught a southbound that made the curve onto the Glidden Sub followed by a westbound out of Houston also heading to San Antonio.
Nothing else appeared to be close by and we headed back to Smithville for the night. The next morning of the 22nd I gave my thanks to Bruce and his wife for the two night hospitality and headed north towards College Station. Along the way, I found Austin Western’s eastbound local out of Manor on the east side of Austin heading to a rock quarry just west of Giddings.
The engineer gave me a friendly wave!
As the maximum speed was 20 mph I had no trouble beating the train to Paige where I was able to get a wider view of the four units up front as they passed a field of round bales. The power this day was two SD40-2’s, a SD60 and a SD60M.
With the local properly recorded, I headed on to College Station where I met friend and Deputy Director of the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum Dr. Robert Holzweiss. Robert and I had lunch in the new exhibit hall containing the ex-UP 4141 Bush Sd70ACe and a Marine One helicopter. I concentrated on the locomotive as this was my first visit since this building was built around it.
The media display was of special interest to me as some of the photos were taken by me when the unit was in operation.
Eventually Bob had to go back to work and I needed to get on home. I pulled over briefly at Hearne to catch this view of two southbound trains with the city marker.
My final catch of the trip was at Burleson after getting ahead of a northbound UP on the Fort Worth Sub with a CP leader.
I made it the rest of the way home without incident, winding up a great trip with some great visits with friends.
