Tuesday June 23rd, 2026 will go down as a small bit of history as the first time Amtrak’s Texas Eagle was led by a relatively new Siemens ALC-42 instead of a worn-out GE P42DC. The P42DC’s have been around since the 1990’s While Amtrak put its first ALC-42 in service pulling the Empire Builder on February 8, 2022. A month ago, ALC-42 number 311 was a dead trailing locomotive behind the regular P42DC on the Texas Eagle and was set out in Fort Worth and San Antonio for crew familiarization.
I noticed on social media that Amtrak 21 arriving in Fort Worth on Tuesday was solely powered by ALC-42 number 315. Accompanied by railfan friend Luke Meacham, we arrived at Fort Worth Central Station just in time to photograph the late-running train arriving at 2:26 pm.
Train 22 had already arrived at Platform Three on the east side, so I pivoted to the right quickly enough to capture the 315 with P42DC number 69 leading Train 22.
Within a minute o0f taking this photo I wheeled around looking north at Trinity Metro headquarters as a TEXRail train from DFW airport pulled into the station. Note the temporary sign “Anden 3” which is Spanish for “Platform 3”.
Next up, one of the two train sets leased from the defunct Minnesota Northstar commuter service for World Cup passenger traffic arrived at Platform Two from the T&P station.
As soon as all passengers had boarded, the four-car train with a capacity of close to 1,000 passengers rolled downhill to pass under the east end of Trinity Metro headquarters and the BNSF main lines.
As we stood there listening to the radio, Train 22 had completed boarding and then backup up to the location of the fuel truck to fill the tank before leaving for Chicago. It became apparent that Train 21 would depart before 22 was ready, so Luke and I decided to scout locations south of Tower 55 to capture an open view of the entire train along with the ALC-42 leading. With about ten minutes to spare we found our desired spot just beyond the south switch at Birds and made this photo at 3:25 pm.
There was time to frame up one more close-up a few seconds later.
The P42DC units will be missed by some, but they have served their time and now constant breakdowns, and plain old rust have sealed their fate. Another twenty years and this cycle will begin again.
