Out & About – Nov. 24, 2012

Super weather today, so I played a bit of hooky from being productive and went trackside for a bit this afternoon. First up was an ILBEW (intermodal Long Beach-Englewood) train through Stafford just after 1:00 PM this afternoon:

I headed back home for some lunch and to take care of some things. I wrapped up about 3 PM and headed toward the curve at MP 21.5, just east of Hwy 59. Shortly after I got there, the detector at 15.6 announced a westbound, for which I was locked and loaded. Good thing I was, as one of my fave paint schemes  led the MEWEG-24 (manifest Englewood-Eagle Pass) by me at 3:21 PM.

Ferromex on the point calls for another shot. The problem is the train is doing a good 50mph, there’s no eastbound traffic to slow it down, and Hwy 90 has a bazillion traffic lights. As such, US 59 toward Rosenberg was my only option.

Upon my arrival to the Spur 10 overpass near MP 40, the MEWEG’s headlight was already in view. It made better time than I anticipated. FXE 4614 passed through what passes for fall colors in southeast Texas at 3:47 PM.

Returning to the car, I heard the DS give a track warrant to a westbound KCSM train. I headed toward the Tower 17 interlocking area to set up for a shot.  As it turned out, a southbound BNSF train would go by first.

I decided against a tried-and-true shot of the KCSM at the interlocking. Instead, I ended up near MP 1.70 of UP’s Rosenberg sub where I found a another bit of those hard-to-find southeast Texas fall colors.

The only problem was the head-on sun angle really lit up the scotchlite on the nose of lead unit KCSM 4529. Once again, I’ll ask the existential question of our times- what can you really do?

The going away shot turned out to be my favorite shot of the day. I wasn’t even going to try it because I’m almost shooting into the sun, and well, you’re not supposed to do that, right? Good thing I forgot about that rule…

There were a few more trains in the area, but I needed to get back home to do my Christmas shopping. I’ve had my eye on a new book, “Southern Pacific Lines Across Texas and Louisiana 1934-1961”, and I just might order it tonight. I did say it was my Christmas shopping…