So far this “winter” here in Texas has been unseasonably warm. That would describe Sunday November 11, 2025 which turned out to be a sunny day with light winds and a high of around 80 degrees. I decided to get out for a while on the UP Baird Sub to see what I could find. I started in nearby Aledo and was rewarded with a green signal for a westbound train.
The morning photo here would be backlit, but at this point I did not want to drive any further west and would settle for this situation. That decision was affirmed a few minutes after 10:00 am when a generic UP power lashup ran by the camera pulling a “Z” train.
I went to Sonic just up the street for a drink, and as I was pulling out down at the track the crossing protection started up. For once the radio had given me no advance warning when three NS and one UP blew by westbound with what was obviously a ZAILC intermodal train. Now I had a reason to go further west and in a hurry to boot!
Making e a quick U-turn, I headed north to I20 west where I flew to the bypass on the west side of Weatherford and then west again on the Mineral Wells highway to Preble. Arriving a few minutes ahead of the ZAILC, I was ready when it passed the east switch. There was an eastbound intermodal pulling into the siding and the hot ZAILC had to stop at the west end to wait for it to clear up. The head end passed my location a minute later and headed back onto the mainline.
A string of intermodal cars stretched out of sight in both directions.
Then a set of mid-train DPU’s showed up.
Once again an endless string of well cars before the rear end finally showed up. This train had to be somewhere around 15,000 to 17,000 feet in length.
The radio indicated this train would again go through the siding at Weatherford to meet another westbound. Before long the westbound reached my location at east Preble.
This was a long and probably heavy train that had two DPU’s on the rear.
The radio indicated there were more westbounds on the way, so I decided to move a few miles back east towards Weatherford to the grade crossing on North Lambert Road. My plan was to catch one train here then move up closer to Weatherford, but the dispatcher had a conversation with M of W that he had three westbounds and one eastbound to run before they could get track and time to work. I decided this was one of those times it would be better to wait here and let the trains come to me rather than miss something good.
At 1:11 pm the first westbound passed by heading downhill towards Preble.
The second westbound showed up at 1:36 pm. The light was good here, so maybe not missing any trains was the right decision.
In a few minutes I heard this train talking to the eastbound at Preble and then the eastbound announcing that it had a signal to leave the siding. I could hear its two units working hard uphill as they approached my location.
After a meet at Weatherford the third westbound turned out to be a loaded sand train with three units on the head end and one on the rear going into dynamic braking as the train was fully on the downhill grade.
Driving through Weatherford I heard the eastbound train meeting a westbound train at Iona and a few minutes later the defect detector at Aledo announced its location indicating the westbound train was on its way to me. I drove to the east side of the Main Street crossing just west of the east end of Weatherford siding. In about ten minutes this train sped past my location.
An SD70ACe was leading this train.
One DPU was bringing up the rear.
As I was preparing to head on home the detector at Aledo went off again meaning another westbound was on the way. Once again the best option was to stay here and wait for it to arrive.
This train was also led by an SD70ACe.
Now I did start out on the last leg of the trip home while monitoring the radio. It stayed quiet and I got home not too long before sunset. I started out in the morning with the expectation of catching one or two trains in an hour or two, but ended up staying out all day and photographing a total of ten trains. Not bad at all, especially for a day where the temperature hovered around 75 degrees!
