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Friday, May 19, 2017

Driving Close To Home

Two things, sorry about being bad about posting on here, and sorry about being so behind on uploads.

Anyway, this past Wednesday I did my usual thing of checking ATCS on the UP Beaumont Sub, which is the easiest drive to my home in Kingwood, TX (for those of you who haven't heard, I'm back in Texas for the Summer.) I saqw on ATCS that two EBs were coming on the Beaumont Sub. When I arrived, the first train, the ISLSH, a KCS train from San Luis Potosi to Shreveport, quickly snuck up on me. I got no stills, but I did get video of it which I will upload eventually. I looked at ATCS again on my phone and saw one more train headed my way. I figured once it got dead on the Beaumont Sub, I would drive to Liberty and railfan the Houston Sub for a bit. The next train turned out to be a BNSF crude oil train. I always forget that BNSF has trackage rights here!


After that train, I saw that the typical MoW (seriously, how much maintenance does the Beaumont Sub need?) was starting up, so I drove over to Liberty. I saw two men working on a siding switch there, so my first thought was to get lunch. Well, perfect timing! I brought my scanner inside, and right as I threw my trash away and was leaving, I heard them lifting the track & time. Perfect. About 30 minutes later, I caught another BNSF trackage rights train, the H-SSBDYT rolling past the Liberty SP depot.

The line seemed to be dead for a bit, so I went to sonic and got ice cream. I brought it back trackside, of course. You gotta spend as little time away from the tracks as possible, after all! And that logic worked out, as while I was eating the ice cream, the QDYLI, the only regular EB on this portion of the Houston Sub, blasted through Liberty and its 12 railroad crossings.




After this train, it became clear that they were going to start holding everything for Amtrak's passage in about two hours. Therefore, I headed back over to the Beaumont Sub and they were just lifting track & time there. Perfect! I caught a couple more UP trains and a KCS train (no stills of any of those, but videos of all of them) then headed home. Expect more days like this, as I still have a full Summer left!

Also, I have a few trips scheduled for anybody who would like to meet up with me. In mid-June, I will be in the Pittsburgh, PA area. In late June until mid-July, I will be in Southern California. If anybody wants to meet up with me in any of those places, or in Texas at any other time, comment below and I will PM you with specific dates!

Also, my return to Nebraska is set for early Fall. Thanks for reading, and stay tuned for more WILD adventures!

~Matt