Saturday, March 12th was my next time to get out for a special train. The UP deadheaded a nineteen car passenger train from the car shops in Council Bluffs to Houston so it would be staged for a trip during the coming week from College Station, TX to Little Rock, AR. I would have preferred to chase the train from Denison to Fort Worth, but other obligations dictated I catch it coming into Fort Worth. I picked up friend David Steckler and we were in position north of Tower 55 where Ninth Street dead ends at the tracks when the train came into view a few minutes after 3:00 pm.
I was planning on a drone shot a few hundred feet to the north of our location and then a DSLR photo as the train passed by. As it turned out, the train stopped on Main One north of the signal bridge with a red signal so I flew the drone on up there for this looking down view.
I brought the drone back as the train pulled up closer to the signal bridge. Dave and I saw a northbound freight approaching on Main Two immediately left of the train which would block our view if it started to pull, so we decided to drive up to the head end for a quick photo or two in case that happened. I took these two shots quickly before our view was blocked from the right.
The power consisted of the now usual pair of SD70M’s 4404 and 4533 that show up on most recent business trains. Another northbound in the siding behind the passenger special rolled by and then the Main One signal snapped to yellow so our target train could pull down to the “Back Door” at Ney Yard for a crew change. Dave and I quickly relocated to our original location and I snagged this photo in which all nineteen cars are visible as the train accelerated past us.
You can barely still see the locomotives passing Tower 55 in the going away view. The rear curtain on the theater car “Idaho” was down so for sure no one was back there.
Dave and I had the time available so we decided to forge ahead down the Midlothian Sub and look for one more spot as the shadows were starting to lengthen. We checked several locations around Forest Hill as we heard the train depart Ney Yard, but we ended up at the Newt Patterson Road crossing in Mansfield for our final shots a few minutes before 5:00 pm at milepost 36. I had launched the drone a few minutes earlier, but did not see a view better than this.
I saw an old acquaintance in the form of sleeping car Lake Forest where I was based out of for three weeks during the Democratic and Republican national conventions back in 2008.
The curtain at the rear of the Idaho was still down when I captured this final view of the train for the day.
I took Dave back home with our brief but successful mission accomplished.
