Today’s Trains – March 6, 2010 – Part 2

Picking up where I left off from Saturday’s rounds, I left Settegast to see what might be at North Yard / Basin Yard and points south.

After driving a bit, I came across the switcher that UP leaves at the west end of Booth Yard. UPY 2104 was available for a broadside view:

UPY 2104 is shut down, between assignments, at Booth Yard in Houston on March 6, 2010

UPY 2104  is an MP20GP genset unit. Its heritage, in chronological order, is  order is MP GP50 3528, to UP 78, to UP 988, to UP 1686. The 1686 was retired by the UP on May 27, 2005.

The conversion from GP50 to genset was done by Motive Power Industries at Boise, Idaho. It was delivered to the UP in June of 2006.

Moving on, I heard a BNSF trackage rights train coming up the Strang Sub. I saw it first at the Central Avenue crossing:

BNSF 5484 with a NB trackage rights train at MP 7 of UP's Strang Sub on March 6, 2010

As the entire 21 mile length of the Strang Sub is 20mph railroad, it was easy to jump ahead to catch this train at Manchester Junction.

BNSF 5484 is one mile up the road at MP 6, Manchester Junction in southeast Houston

The 5484 is approaching the Tower 30 interlocking (The Katy Neck), where the dispatcher can line northbound trains to continue north via the Strang sub, southeast or northwest on the Galveston sub, or southwest on the Glidden sub.

As it turned out, the train was lined onto the Galveston sub toward downtown on the Galveston sub. I’d never shot a train on that particular stretch between Tower 30 and downtown, mainly because there isn’t much traffic on the line.

BNSF 5484 nears Tower 85, the junction of the UP Galveston sub with the UP East Belt sub

Most of the 4 miles of Galveston sub between downtown and Tower 30 cuts through backyards, with few conventional photo ops. That being the case, I opted for a broadside view as the train crossed over the nicely painted Forest Hill Blvd. overpass.

As the sun was dropping toward the horizon, I called it a day.