Texas County Collecting - Day 2

Day 2 in Texas

I started in Flatonia at 8AM. All was quiet and there were no trains in the area. After a side trip to San Antonio to firm up travel plans back to Monterrey, I decided to head southeast and intercept the KCS/TexMex route to Laredo.

My route took down US 181 south from San Antonio. I noticed on my Texas map that there were two towns with Polish-sounding names in Wilson & Karnes counties. Since I’m of Polish ancestry and I didn’t expect to find many Poles in Texas, I thought this was worth a look-see. I traveled to Kosciusko and Cestohowa – not exactly the correct Polish spelling but close enough! I never thought I’d see a Polish flag flying with the Texas state flag, but there it was…

After that dose of rootedness I took the scenic route to Refugio, picking off counties I’d otherwise have no reason to transit. Lots of flat farm and ranchland. (Slightly) exceeding the speed limit on two lane US 77A/183. Once upon a time the train passed through Goliad, with its classic southern-style town square & courthouse. All that’s left is the remnant of an underpass beneath the now-gone bridge deck which once carried SP tracks from Victoria to Beeville.

In Refugio the railfanning began. It was easy to find the UP tracks as they were just a few blocks in from US 77, the main route from Houston to Corpus Christi. When not in a town the tracks hug the road. These tracks carry UP, BNSF and KCS, and I saw all three between here and Robstown. I was driving, again just slightly over the speed limit, so I missed capturing on film the NB BNSF grain train. The NB UP mixed freight gave me enough warning to shoot through the windshield at 70MPH. That was south of Woodsboro, in Refugio Countty.

Once I hit Robstown the KCS/TexMex tracks head west to Laredo, across yet more farm & ranchlands. I hit a KCS goldmine on this stretch of about 120 miles of track. A NB grain train
was canned on a siding just west of Robstown. Like shooting fish in a barrel, I was able to get some great shots of the train with its 2 KCS-belle painted units (1 GE, 1 EMD – unit numbers to appear at slideshow time).

Flat-as-a-pancake coastal plain is the name of the game from Robstown (home of the greatest high school name I’ve ever seen – the Robstown Cottonpickers. I have the water tower pic to prove it) to Alice, a surprisingly large town in the innards of south Texas and the county seat of Jim Wells county. Just east of Alice the FRED frequency chirped, and across the cotton field another KCS grain train sped east. This train was entirely those KCS-newly painted grain cars. Unfortunately the taggers have already sullied a few – it must be discouraging to paint railroad cars for a living.

West of San Diego (just across the county line into Duval county) the landscape transitioned from farmland to classic Texas ranchland. Classic Texas ranchland is mostly brown but some green fields, enclosed by miles of metal fencing from as simple as barbed wire to as elaborate as custom-built, big bucks fence. Occasionally you see cattle. Once in a while you get lucky and spot more exotic fauna. My best catch was the combination buffalo/ostrige ranch.

From San Diego through Benavides, Realitos, Hebbronville (a lot of states have some place named Hebron or close to it), Bruni, Oilton, and on to Laredo, it’s miles of welded rail through the ranchlands. Just west of Hebbronville the FRED chirped again and another EB passed by in the pouring rain (I experienced a couple of Texas thunderstorms, which you can imitate by painting your car windows black, standing on the roof, and pouring bucket after bucket of water onto your windshield), mixed freight pulled by a couple of grey GP60s.

I hit the city limits of Laredo about 10 miles east of downtown. For some reason Laredo has the least expensive gas prices in all of Texas. I filled up for 2.36 a gallon (up in Flatonia it was 2.99).

So that’s the end of Texas for a while. Today’s tally was 7 counties, 13 for the weekend, and 34 total. Only about 200 to go and Texas is complete!

Texas County Collecting- Day 1 of 2

I'm writing from Flatonia TX, about midway between Houston and San Antonio on Interstate 10, exit 661. Flatonia advertises its railfan platform in Trains Magazine. Given this is my last work week in these parts I had to come & check out Flatonia. My motel is 5 minutes away from the railfan platform & diamond - Grumpy's Motel. A clean, basic room with WiFi included was had for $40 a night plus about 12% tax.

Flatonia is a small, pleasant town of about 2,000 residents. Railfan eats are within 5 minutes. The town itself is three blocks east of the railfan platform, about a 7-10 minute walk. The tower that guarded the diamond was in active use from 1902 through 1996. Local residents petitioned to save the Tower, and Union Pacific gave the Tower to the town. The town has moved the tower 3 blocks east, along the tracks and visible from all parts of the village. through.

The sun is super right now (4PM), as the railfan platform was built in the NW quadrant of the diamond area. (The SE quadrant contains a private house, and the SW quadrant is an active hay field contained within a wye).


A E-W line crosses a N-S line at the diamond. Both lines are single track. The line east comes from San Antonio. Trains can proceed east to Houston, or take the NW Wye to the North track to Dallas. A less busy S track goes to Victoria. Noteworthy are the KCS trackage rights from Houston to Victoria.

This isn't the West Slope, or Fallston, but I'm told action can be good. At the moment the sky is azure blue and cloudless, temps are in the mid-80s, and I'm sitting in the shade, an easterly breeze blowing through my train nymph's golden tresses. A rooster is crowing in the pen of the farmer located adjacent to the area.

(The train nymph is firmly planted in my imagination and nowhere else.)

Arrive Flatonia @ 1600
1800 WB UP3992 9304, 68 empty autoracks for San Antonio @ beyond
1853 WB to SB KCS4699, 4680 106 cars of general freight for Victoria @ beyond (certified "luck of the Apollo" train)
Leave Flatonia @ 2000

No digital pictures - just slides. You'll have to wait for the slideshow...
Counties collected - 6

Recon in "The County"

DT&I Fan and I left his house around 7:30am and returned after 680 miles and 15 hours from a rather interesting recon of Aroostook County rails. We didn't stay in any one place for very long and the only thing moving on rails above "The Keag" was the CN on the Canadian side of the St. John River. Thank heavens for fall colors and "new turf". It turned out to be quite a fun adventure for such a small amount of railfanning. We got a lot of "recon work" done though. The photo above was shot in Fort Kent at around 3pm, about our halfway point. We went north on route 11 and returned south on US 1. $2.92 gas at Smyrna Mills cost me $19.00 both times we passed that point, which was also the meeting point for our northern loop.

Our first actual encounter with a train was on the east end (compass north) of Lincoln at around 10:30am. GRS 328 and 505 were sitting with a rather long EB train. Since we were on a different mission we didn't wait around and wondered what was causing the wait. We toured Mattawamkeag as usual taking in a "Paul Bunyon" car and a brand new "Badger" track machine. The "Luck of the Apollo" set in when we decided the sun was just right for a picture of that funky CP bridge on the west end of town. While there we heard a very nearby voice crackle on the scanner. Before I could climb into the car to leave, three NBSR units appeared from the very bridge we chose to shoot moments before. They waited at the "depot" for what may have been the train the GRS guys in Lincoln were pulling. Again, no time to wait so a few pic's were taken by the depot and we were northbound again. Our day was "made" so early! (10:50am)

Northbound we headed to Oakfield. Just shy of there is the small town of Island Falls. Apparently there was a very busy spur into town until recently. There is a National Starch plant there (a friend of mine works for them in KC) and a bunch of other smaller industries with roadbeds where tracks used to be. The "Two Potato" building was curious and I'll add photos later if I can acquire them. Oakfield was unfortunately unexciting. No power around. No one home at the museum. No yard sounds. No scanner chatter. So we moved on to what turned out to be nearly the cheapest gas of the day.

We made our way north on state route 11 and crossed the old BAR mainline a couple of times but mainly saw fall scenery hiding tracks. Checking out towns like Squa Pan, Ashland, Eagle Lake, we saw empty tracks, small yards, and a couple of low access wood industries. Our fortunes changed a bit once we reached Fort Kent and a slightly higher level of civilization. We were checking out the depot, now historical society when we spotted the stripes of MMA 1 down the tracks (see top photo). It was in a wide open place with plenty of public access for once. For some reason (lighting, access) this was my first chance to get a good photo of the wandering car. A bit down the road we couldn't help but see the Frenchville Historical Society's displays which were shoehorned between the road and the tracks. Though faded, the caboose was a neat find since I want to kitbash one for my layout. There was the water tower, a small depot and freight shed strung out in the skinny space. Hard to miss and worth the quick stop.

Madawaska and Van Buren turned out to be interesting border towns at the extreme end of the BAR empire. This photo of the Madawaska depot and MMA 2002 were actually squeezed in to a tight space between the river, border station and Fraser Paper plant. This was a "shoot and scoot" because I was turning around at the border station and a couple of "menacing looking" law enforcement and plant security vehicles were handy to watch my car do several "lost tourist" maneuvers to get the one shot. No one got excited though.

Continuing south, we checked out the relics of the past when the BAR made the same loop. Lots of roadbeds around. The current spurs to Caribou, Presque Isle and Houlton were lightly explored before dark hit. Unfortunately, clouds brought an early sunset. 30 years ago, we would have been stumbling over BAR locals handling potato traffic and the other industries now dormant or using trucks. This day we just dodged a few farm trucks hauling spuds from the fields. The big potato houses along the ROW are finding other uses or just decaying.

In the end, there was plenty to see ferroequinarchaeology-wise. Not much railfan-wise. We were just wanting to "get out of Dodge" as much as anything so it worked out well. At least now we can visualize what we've only read or heard about before. On the way back we realized that we could have gone past Albany, NY for some big-time mainline action and Selkirk Yard with the same amount of driving. People would have been impressed that you crossed all those states, visited a far off locale and can produce an evening's entertainment with all the photos you took. (The Wheelman is likely wandering through Texas doing exactly that this weekend.) We, however, never left the state! Ho Hum!

I didn't miss the traffic, rude people and "Barney Fifes" found in the other direction.


BC

Perryville Railfanning

Caught some interesting moves at Perryville MD the other day.

First is a FRA inspection train that came into the Perryville Wye where the NS Port Road Branch meets the NEC. They went into the Wye and stopped.

Immediately on his heels was the Bennet Levin E8's and 5 special cars returning from the Washington Union Station Centennial heading north back to their home near Philadelphia.

Then the FRA train went around the wye and headed back south. I did notice (but it's not on the video) there were a lot of oriental looking businessmen in the gallery of the observation car.

Enjoy

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNtuj6r76wM

The Fiddler