After watching fireworks last night on Saturday July 04, 2026, I went to bed with the knowledge that early Sunday morning, a Union Pacific passenger train would be heading east over the Baird Subdivision near home. The lead unit was UP 1943, the Military Veterans Unit but I did not know any other details about the train or its purpose. I was guessing it was probably one of UP’s “Engineering Specials” where top maintenance of way officials personally inspected the right of way.
I woke up a little after 6:00am Sunday morning and saw a message from a friend that the train was passing Millsap west of Weatherford, I jumped up, got dressed and was trackside at the east switch of Iona siding around 6:30am just as the sun was coming up. Friend Dan Cook was waiting for the passenger train in Aledo four miles to the west, and he let me know that an eastbound manifest train passed him a few minutes after 7:00am. Dan pulled up a few seconds before the manifest train arrived at 7:18 am.
There was one unit on the point and Dan said this was a long train with one DPU in the middle and one more locomotive shoving on the rear. I caught the mid-train DPU but missed the one on the rear.
The manifest freight disappeared down the hill towards Fort Worth and a few short minutes later we heard UP 1943 calling an approach signal at the west end of Iona as it followed close behind. By the time the passenger train appeared at the east end it had a green signal to proceed down the main.
A few seconds later I nailed my desired view of the passenger train as it picked up speed at 7:32 am.
The door protecting the track-view end of the Fox River was down as no one was in the theater area this early in the morning.
Well, now it was 7:34 am and for all practical purposes I was now done railfanning for the day as clouds were moving in, I had several projects to work on at home out of the oppressive heat including this same day blog post!
