Thursday, February 13th marked the return trip of BNSF’s Super Bowl train from New Orleans back to Topeka by way of Houston and Fort Worth. On the southbound trip I caught it crossing the Brazos River south of Cleburne right after sunset, but I still managed to capture a popular photo with my Mavic 3 Classic drone. I planned to use the drone again once it became evident the return trip would pass through Fort Worth around midday when the sun would be high and backlighting the train.
I almost left home too late and arrived at the north end of Central Station just as the train was pulling up to the south side of Tower 55. Luckily for me the train slowed down to cross the Tower on UP Main One to reach BNSF Main Two. I launched the drone and got into position at 12:25 pm to capture the entire train with as much of downtown as possible in the background.
The drone is capable of around 40 mph in still conditions, and since the train was making only 20 mph I decided to fly on north and see if I had time to compose another photo. Without the open space beside the train, I had to go with a more head on view that was also more directly into the sun than the first photo. I was out of time though and had no choice but to push the shutter release button on the drone remote controller.
At this point I saw no purpose in trying to go on ahead, so I turned to the right and composed this going away photo with the underpass mural as an anchor in the lower left photo.
The train was due to stop at Alliance Yard but following it north would not improve on the backlighting, so I decided to fly back and pack up for the day. Catching it once on the way down and now once on the way back would be sufficient for this special train.
