My good friend Paul Beverung had never seen the Big Boy in operation, and so on October 9th when it was operating from Hearne to Fort Worth, Paul and his son John and grandson Nathan followed me to a county road crossing just north of Itasca where we set up to wait. Looking for something different I asked Paul to pull his pickup decaled with the family business logo close to the crossing so I could compose a photo of him waving at the train. At 2:54 pm everything came together!
A few seconds later Paul’s son John waves at the fireman.
After the train passed us we got back on I35W North and beat the train to Fort Worth in time to set up at the West Dickson Street crossing. We framed up the train with an old grain elevator that is scheduled to be demolished soon. UP 4014 came into our viewfinders at 4:04 pm.
The train was going to park in the business car track on the south side of the T&P station, so we relocated to the TEXRail/ TRE station platform just as the train had finished backing around the connectors at Tower 55 and was now heading west on Main One.
On the rear platform of the business car Lincoln, the man on the left is UP CEO Jim Vena.
Now backing into the business car spur off of Main One, UP 4014 is getting radio direction on when to stop short of the east switch of the spur track.
I headed home after this photo including UP and a TRE commuter train as I would be back early the next tow mornings to provide coverage of the two-day display event.
