By Tuesday April 26th My ability to walk with a cane while wearing my boot was improving, but not so much that I kept close to the car. Not a perfect situation, but good enough that when BNSF operated a southbound funeral train with one live unit pulling nine BNSF SD70MAC’s to be scrapped in Brownsville. I decided to catch the move passing through Crowley in one of my favorite open spot where I could get the whole train in one photo.
Now this strategy was not without some risk in that the open spot was on the west side of the main and siding at Crowley where if an undesired train occupied the main while the target train took the siding I would be skunked. So while I was sitting on the west side in Crowley as the target train was approaching Tower 55, I heard the detector south of Crowley sound off behind me followed by this northbound intermodal train coming up the main a minute later.
The third unit was a KCS unit, and these days I photograph all of them that come my way.
With my view of the siding now blocked, I quickly drove to the northern most grade crossing and transferred to the east side of the main and siding just before the lights and gates activated. Within minutes a southbound auto rack train pulled into the siding as the northbound was still creeping up.
I drove up to the dead end of a street close to the north switch here at Crowley.
The auto rack pulled on down the siding and out the other end to continue its journey south. The intermodal pulled on up the main and stopped short of the signal. I was able to discern from the radio that the next southbound would be Amtrak 21 which also ran down the siding when it arrived.
After Amtrak 21 passed the intermodal, it got a green signal on the main and moved on north towards Tower 55. As I heard the next southbound meeting the northbound intermodal at Birds would be my target train, I started back to my original location hoping it would take the main here at Crowley. When I approached the main street crossing my hopes were thwarted when I saw a headlight coming north up the main. This headlight belonged to a northbound empty rock train powered by a single unit.
I made the decision to go south of town and find a suitable spot for the funeral train. While not as open as my first choice in locations, I chose the west side of the Horse Creek Road grade crossing as I could work in a milepost and the Crowley water tower with the funeral train.
Here is my sequence including each of the nine dead units behind the leader, BNSF 8993. The units going to scrap were a mix of BN green and white Executive paint and BNSF orange and green.
One final going away photo with the grade crossing ended the day.
Some of these units I have surely photographed over the years in service, and it will be fun to go back and look for those pictures and their memories.
