The private event to be held with BNSF 250 and its train on the east side of Central Station in downtown Fort Worth on the morning of Tuesday June 14th brought out many local railfans. As we had no invitations to the event, the group with me including Luke Meacham, Nathan Beverung, Dakota Miller, David Steckler, Mike Walter and David Hawkins decided to catch the train southbound at the Trinity River bridges north of downtown. Over the radio we heard the train passing Saginaw around 11:30 am so we all moved to our chosen positions on the south side of the river.
I chose to stand in the park to the southwest of the BNSF bridges and shoot upwards at the train. When the train arrived I saw it was flying the US flag on the engineer’s side and the Texas flag on the conductor’s side.
I quickly panned to the right and caught this view of the American flag waving in the wind.
We chose as a group to not bother going downtown to the event, so with around two hours to kill we elected to have lunch at Nizza’s Pizza on nearby University Avenue. The food was excellent as always at Nizza’s and we all had a great visit, We knew that after the event the train supposedly would be turned at Tower 55 and start back immediately for Topeka with a fresh crew. Our decision was to head north to the open grassy area by the ex-Kosse, Texas Southern Pacific station in Saginaw.
We pulled up at the depot at 1:10 pm and were quickly rewarded with a southbound UP grain train. I had to literally scramble out of the car for this view.
We took shelter from the sun and heat in our cars while we waited for developments. Around 1:45 pm the radio informed us that the train could not be turned in a timely manner at Tower 55, so it was going to back up all the way from downtown and past our location to be turned on the wye leading to the Wichita Falls Sub. Then it would pull north to Lake Wanda where it would change to a new Alliance to Oklahoma City pool crew.
Those of us left decided this would give us time after the train passed to beat it to the big curve in Ponder for one more photo opportunity before heading home. At about a quarter after 2:00 pm we spotted the rear lights on the Gerald Grinstein heading our way with the conductor riding the shove.
The “going away” shot was well lit.
In addition to changing crews we heard several of BNSF’s business car management team ask the train to stop at the south end of Alliance and pick them up. That move assured our beating the train to Ponder and we settled in at the pullout next to the tracks with its compliment of three food trucks and a shaded patio that we made good use of. At 3:54 pm our target train arrived moving at around 60 mph and I executed three pre-planned photos.
Photo one with a Canon 100-400 L Zoom on a 5D Mark IV body captured the train passing the Ponder water tower with the name prominently visible.
Photo two with a Canon 24-105 L Zoom on another 5D Mark IV body caught a full broadside of the train a few seconds later.
Photo three required a fast switch back to the body with the 100-400 L Zoom to catch this photo of probably the conductor and one of the Business Car managers enjoying the breeze from the observation platform on the rear of the Gerald Grinstein, named after the final CEO of the Burlington Northern.
We relaxed a few minutes and finished our drinks while we waited for the arrival of a southbound loaded rock train that had been in the siding at Metro. The 120 car train’s two lead units pulled down the main at 5:21 pm.
I framed up the two DPU’s shoving on the rear with a tree branch and some nice clouds. Now you can see why I like this spot even though you may be blocked if your target train is in the siding on the other side of the main.
It was starting to get late now, so those of us remaining decided to follow this train back south. We made a stop at Lambert where a northbound train was tied down waiting for a new crew. What got our attention and rewardingly worthy of a picture was this FerroSur GE from Mexico. FerroSur serves southeast Mexico and this is the first time I have ever seen one of their locomotives let alone anywhere in the United States.
As we were getting back in the car we heard Amtrak 822 was close by heading north to Oklahoma City. We dropped back north to Harmonson Road in Justin and I decided to use the Canon 5D Mark IV body with the 100-400 L Lens one more time for this day. We only had to wait a few minutes before I captured this coming and going sequence. The lead unit is really starting to rust out everywhere.
We un unilaterally agreed this had been a great railfan day!