On Saturday September 26, 2026, the sun was playing hide-and-seek with the clouds as I drove south of Cleburne heading to the BNSF’s Brazos River bridge. BNSF’s USA 250th Anniversary ES44AC locomotive number 250 was about to leave Fort Worth southbound pulling a 17-car business train to Galveston for a special event. I had the Brazos River as the perfect first spot for a drone photo of what would be a brief chase of the train.
The BNSF business car train left Fort Worth as the third of three south bounds. The first train was a 15,000-ton unit alcohol train with a 2 x 1 locomotive configuration. The second train was a Tulsa to Temple manifest train with two BNSF units up front. After the three trains had passed Tower 55, the dispatcher came on the radio and announced the business train’s priority had changed from “zero” to “Galveston by morning!”.
So now to get the special ahead of the other two trains, the manifest freight took the siding at Rio Vista north of me while the unit train was told to take the siding at Morgan to the south since there was a northbound in the siding at Kopperl. The unit train’s engineer told the dispatcher if he went to Morgan “he would only have 100 feet to spare to fit in the siding and going downhill with 15,000 tons he might unintentionally run through the south switch.” Then he said, “if you stop me at Kopperl We might stall on the hill up to Morgan.” The dispatcher asked, “what if I take you to Meridian?” to which the engineer replied “that should work with no problems.”
I had the drone up and in position when the unit train slow rolled across the Brazos River at 3:53 pm. Earlier I had worried about the sun being directly in line with the bridge thereby casting a shadow down both sides of the train. Once I studied the raw photo just taken, I could see the sun was now on the west side (my side) of the bridge.
I included some of the rugged terrain here in the going away photo a few minutes later.
The unit train was far enough ahead that the special had a green signal and was doing close to 70 when it sped across the bridge at 4:27 pm. I was worried due to the drone’s slight shutter lag I might have let BNSF 250 escape out the right side of the frame, but everything was good. I also liked all the single level cars on the front of the train.
I framed up a going away picture showing the wide valley to the left which hosts the northern end of Lake Whitney. I decided to pack up quickly and head to Morgan since the special would soon be running on yellows behind the unit train.
I made it to Morgan and at first thought I was late to the game, but then spotted a yellow signal on the main at the south end just as the detector north of town sounded off. I had time to squeeze off one good shot at 4:50 pm. Now the race was on again as I hit the road to Meridian.
I made it to the FM 2840 crossing on the north side of Meridian in ten minutes where I encountered fellow railfans Jadon Henderson and Caden Cotton. I liked the broadside shot they had in mind here and took a sequence of photos at 5:04 pm. The unit train was already here safely tucked away in the siding and the special took off like a rabbit out of a hiding place.
The unit train was already here safely tucked away in the siding and the special took off like a rabbit out from under a bush. I would have loved to get one more shot as the train passed the big open spot next to the road at Manhattan siding about 25 miles further down the line. Weighing the possibility of not beating the train there since it would now be running at passenger speed versus the price of gas and the extra time involved, I decided not to gamble and head for home.