WP Heritage Visits Houston – Again

My previous post was about Union Pacific 1983,  UP’s Western Pacific heritage unit, being in Houston this past March 18th. Fast forward 30 days to this past Monday morning.

It was just after 11:00 A.M. I was home, editing images from a recent event. For entertainment, I had the radio tuned to the Glidden sub road channel. The radio had been quiet all morning, not uncommon, because there are always MOW curfews.

Out of the blue, I hear the dispatcher call UP 1983 for an XC crossing protection at mile post 26.3.  After a few moments of disbelief, I  snapped that this was 3 miles from me!

I jumped out of my chair, grabbing the radio, car keys, water bottle and camera gear in record time.

Once on the road, there was more radio chatter indicating that the 1983 was a westbound. That’s a good thing because at this point light was non-existent due to the overcast skies. Hopefully as it went west, some of the low clouds would burn off.

Within 15 minutes of the initial alert, I had set up near the west switch of Sugar Land siding. A westbound KCS grain train was in the siding and there was a clear signal for the main.

When it was all said and done, I was able to catch the QEWWC 16, UP 1983 at Sugar Land, at East Bernard, coming into Eagle Lake, departing Eagle Lake after meeting an eastbound, and finally in Columbus as it came off of the Colorado River bridge. I only did video due to the tough lighting conditions. On my way back home, I caught an MEWSA at Lissie.

PS- Once the video starts playing, click where it says “360p” near the right, bottom corner of the player. It will switch to 480p, greatly improving the quality of the video.

The light was less than ideal, and it was windy as heck, but what can you really do? All in all, it was a fun chase.  I would have liked to chase it further west, as I did with the UP 1989 chase last September, but the wife had a doctor appointment that afternoon.