On Friday, January 9th, 2026 I drove down to Cleburne to visit with friend Jeremy Krauss who was riding on Amtrak train 22 from home in Temple. After lunch Jeremy would be riding train 21 back to Temple. While I was waiting for him to arrive a southbound loaded coal train sped past the station at 12:27 pm on its wat to Rio Vista to meet Train 22.
The second unit on the front end was one of the dwindling SD70MAC’s still wearing its original BN paint.
Immediately after the rear end of the loaded coal cleared the north leg of the Venus Sub wye, a rock train headed north to Fort Worth.
Train 22 pulled in at 1:10 pm just as it started to rain.
Once in the car Jeremy and I decided to visit the Olive Garden on the west side of town. We had plenty of time for lunch as Train 21 was running 30 minutes later out of Fort Worth due to maintenance of way somewhere south of Temple on the Union Pacific. In fact it was 3:42 pm when Train 21 slowed to make the Cleburne stop.
Jeremy was not the only passenger heading south this day.
As I pulled away from the depot I could see black clouds to the south and to the northwest as I headed back home. I did not expect to take any more photos this day but when I arrived in Cresson the sun came out long enough for me to capture this pair of FWWR SD40-2’s tied down in the yard.
As I got back in the car I heard the FWWR dispatcher giving a warrant to the Cresson Turn leaving Fort Worth. Heading east to the grade crossing on FM 1187, I did not have a long wait until the train showed up at 5:16 pm with five ex-UP SD60M’s on the point.
While there was no sun for the photo at FM 1187, looking to the west I could see the sun would be setting soon through several bands of clouds. Getting ahead of the train again, I took this photo from Winscott-Plover Road looking west.
I stayed just ahead of the train until I reached the east end of the yard and captured this scene with the sun just above the horizon to help with my camera settings.
Less than a minute later the train caught up to me.
Turning 180 degrees I recorded this scene with the train going away from the camera. Unfortunately the sun had just slipped below the horizon so I just missed the brass ring here.
Driving ahead to the grade crossing on the east side of Cresson I took one more sequence of photos starting with the train approaching as the darkness began to thicken.
And passing over the crossing in front of me.
The going away finale photo included the last vestige of the sunset.
Now indeed it was finally time to wrap up the day only a few miles from home.
