As the countdown is running to the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, many railroads are joining in by painting locomotives in celebratory schemes. In the case of CPKC, they announced that five new locomotives would be released from the Wabtec factory in special paint. Number 1776 was due to be released first, but I was unable to get up to the plant on any of the days it was out for pre-delivery testing.
On the morning of March 20th I found out 1776 and several other locomotives had been moved to the delivery track at BNSF control point Lambert. BNSF would have one of the yard jobs from Alliance come out to pick them up for delivery to their respective owners. Walking any distance over uneven ground in my boot was out of the question, but I could get automated FAA clearance to fly the drone at Lambert.
I arrived in the late afternoon when I figured the sun would be at the correct angle and launched the drone from well off of BNSF property to keep everything legal. As I flew over to the delivery track a southbound BNSF manifest freight was rolling down Main Two towards Alliance Yard. It had been a while since I had seen a Ferromex, let alone in the old paint.
Two refurbished UP units were front coupled to the CPKC 1776, but the lighting was perfect even if I could not get the locomotive by itself. I decided to start at the rear and work my way up to the 3/4 front view.
And finally the money shot, carefully cropped later in Lightroom to cut out as much of the UP unit as possible.
Now that I had this sequence of 1776, I am not sure in retrospect why I ignored the UP units and flew back to my launch point. I packed up the drone and just as I was ready to point the car back towards home I heard the defect detector just south of Ponder signal the passage of a southbound train. I quickly relocated to the inside of the curve at the north end of Justin where after only a few minutes this intermodal train showed up.
The lead unit had a stain above the side logo, but wait, the second unit looks like it has logos on it!
Sure enough it was BNSF 6022, one of the ten twenty-fifth anniversary heritage units released a few years ago.
A good way to end a successful adventure!
