Today I had a 9:00 am appointment in Richardson, so with DFW traffic in mind I left the house at 6:15 to cover the roughly 75 miles from southwest of Fort Worth. It was slower than usual eastbound on I20 and even the George Bush Turnpike was stop and go for many miles through Grand Prairie and then Irving and Carrollton. I was listening to the KCS on the radio in case I was able to hear the morning intermodal train from Zacha Junction in Dallas to Metro north of Denton for the hand off to the BNSF.
I figured the train was long gone due to my slow progress, but then at 7:50 am just east of the Dallas North Tollway I heard the KCS 2834 West tell the dispatcher they were approaching White Rock Junction. I was about a mile from the Coit Road exit and had time to get off the Bush Turnpike and cover the half mile north to the track at the east end of Cowley Siding. The train was getting a warrant for the Alliance Sub as I got out of the Explorer and walked down the embankment a hundred or so feet beyond the switch at the crossing.
Less than a minute later the crossing protection started and the headlight appeared moving around 30 mph. Traffic barely cleared as the train passed through the intersection with its K5LA blaring at 8:01 am.
I zoomed back for the close up with the cloud bank overhead prominently featured as the train emerged from a pocket of sunshine. Today’s power was a GP40-3 2842 and GP38-2 2027.
I waved but no one waved back. At least they did not call me in. There were 14 containers and three short trailers, all UPS traffic headed for the BNSF’s Willow Springs, Illinois facility once the cars were handed over at Metro.
I made my appointment with time to spare and the satisfaction that if I had not been caught in traffic, I would have passed here too early instead of being right on time.
