Over Memorial Day weekend, I rode the Texas Eagle with my mother, to meet my dad up in Fort Worth. This just hapenned to be my second time on Amtrak, and my first on a Superliner-equipped train (my first ride was on the Cardinal from Maysville, Ky to D.C.) It happened to be a very interesting ride, some highlights were Taylor (Union Pacific's major yard in Central Texas), Temple (junction for three BNSF lines from Amarillo, Ft. Hood, and Galveston, and has several massive yards), Cleburne (large BNSF yard and the famous Cleburne Shops), and Ft. Worth (especially Tower 55!) Taylor, Texas (UP): An old industrial building on a spur off of the main: The western end of the Taylor Yard, with a couple of SP gons carrying scrap. A Chicago & Northwestern covered hopper: A movie of riding through Taylor Yard (Very Large ~9.7MB) Movie Signal at the end of Taylor Yard:
Another signal at at Taylor: Grain elevator on the outskirts of Taylor: Another elevator: Near Granger, Texas Old Santa Fe caboose:
Temple Large feed mill on the Union Pacific near Temple, Texas: Another grain elevatior: Back end of the first feed mill:
The impressive ex-ATSF Temple Station. Used for Amtrak. BNSF GP40X #3032 (ex-ATSF 3802). Built April 1978. BNSF GP40X #3036 (ex-ATSF 3806). Built April 1978 BNSF SD40-2 #7064 (ex-BN 7064). Built July 1978.
BNSF SD45-2 #s 6492 and 6495 (ex-ATSF 5702 and 5635 respectively). Built in May 1973 and 1972, rebuilt in October and November 1986. NREX SD40-2 #5682 (ex-CP). Built 1974. BNSF GP38 #2192 (ex-ATSF 2302:2), built June 1970, rebuilt May 1985. BNSF GP50 #3124 (ex-BN 3124), built July 1985. BNSF SD40-2 #6762 (ex-ATSF 5103), built October 1979. KCS SD40-2s in the distance.
Matthew, very interesting. It looks like you made a real railfan trip out of an Amtrak ride. Keep posting these good photos. :teeth:
BNSF GP50 #3131 (ex-BN 3131). Built August 1985. Other locomotives unidentifiable. Canadian National SD40-2W #5358. Built in December 1980. Top of a St. Louis Southwestern (Cotton Belt) extended-vision caboose. Unique Southern ribbed boxcar #531304.
Nice shots of Taylor. The boarded-up warehouse (shot 0066) is interesting because of the story it tells about different eras. It looks like perhaps a 1940 or 1950 stylized and simplified version of an earlier similar industrial style. The beige brick addition ON the loading dock is obviously an afterthought. Then presumably after that, much of the building window openings were blanked with corrugated metal. Perhaps shuttered for a storm and never opened... although I guess Taylor is far enougn inland to be out of hurricane alley. And I don't think tornadoes give you time to do much shuttering. In the background of picture 0071, "Signal at the end of Taylor yard" is what I take to be a cotton warehouse. I notice the firewall extending above the roofline, and brick walls extending back a ways from the firewall compartmentalization of the building. I believe this is done because when cotton starts burning, it is so hard to put out. Has its own oxygen to support combustion in the open spaces of the bales, and the fiber is cellulose. I once built a model of one of these kinds of buildings for an operating model railroad display inside a hobby shop in Corpus Christi. The cotton sheds were part of a port facility. Hope to see more pictures from your trip. Bet your Memorial Day was memorable.
The beginnings of the northernmost Temple Yard. Old ATSF passenger car in the northern Temple Yard. BNSF "swoosh" gondola, BNSF GE-unit, and a Ferromex unit. Wide shot of Temple's northern yard.
Northern end of the north Temple Yard. McGregor BNSF GP38-2 #2292 (ex-BN 2292, ex-SLSF 437). Built in August 1974. McGregor railroad depot. Also the stop for Waco, Texas. Feed mill in McGregor, Texas.
Quarry north of McGregor, Texas. Cleburne Cleburne, Texas depot. Last stop before Fort Worth. BNSF employee in front of some covered hoppers in Cleburne Yard. Cleburne Shops, Cleburne, Texas.
BNSF GP50 #3175 (ex-ATSF 3822). Built February 1981. ex-Burlington Northern extended-vision caboose #12546. All windows have been sealed. Fort Worth Huge grain elevator just south of Tower 55. The other side of the huge grain elevator.
More of the same grain elevator. Passing by Tower 55. Old Texas & Pacific Station: Southern Pacific GP40-2 #7956. Built May 1980. Also, Union Pacific Yard GP15-1 #636 (ex-MP 1636). Built September 1979.
The Heartland Flyer to Oklahoma City waiting for connecting passengers from the Texas Eagle. Passengers unloading from the Texas Eagle. Movie of a TRE train backing into the Ft. Worth station. (3.6MB) Movie Trinity Railway Express F59PH #565. Built (unknown).
Photo #0136, "Old ATSF passenger car in the northern Temple Yard" is probably NOT a passenger car in the ordinary sense of a revenue-service car for paying public passengers. It was a Division Superintendent's car, an all-steel car built in 1925 specifically as a traveling home away from home for a Santa Fe Division Superintendent. The car is approximately 60 feet long, a shorty for a passenger car, about the same length as a 60' full Railway Post Office. It had a vestibule at the front end of the car-- plated over here-- and an observation platform on the tail end. Your hoton cuts off the rear end. It looks somewhat as if a model railroad manufacturer were making 60' shorty passenger cars to run on sharp radius "train set" track and this is the version of an observation car for that set. The interior of the car had an observation room equipped with a speedometer, speed recorder, and air gauge (measures brake line air) so the railroad official could judge the performance of the ride compared with the speed....The observation room could be used as an office or meeting room; two "staterooms", that is, enclosed private bedrooms; a dining room (with built in china cabinet, with felt-covered forms to hold glassware and china secure during train movement); a toilet room with BATHTUB; a kitchen (originally with coal-fired stove) and a small room for a porter. A porter normally accompanied the car and cooked meals aboard the train for the superintendent and official guests. I have been inside one or two of these cars, once at a museum and another time at a motel that rented it out as an accomodation. Your photo shows a small door near the front end of the car, about where one would expect to find a mailsack door on a railway post office. The original plans of this series of cars do not show this, and early photos of the series taken in the 1920s and 30s show a window there. A few of the cars have this small door in phots from the 50s and 60s. According to Passenger Train Equipment 1870-1975 of the Atchison Topeka & Santa Fe Volume 2, Business and Special Service Cars, by Frank M. Ellington and Joseph W. Shine, 1975, this car was in service in 1966 and was sold by the Santa Fe in 1968 to Texas Tank Car Works. However, here it is, in silver paint which was used by the Santa Fe for cars relegated to work service. The Ellington and Shine book says five of the 18 car series were converted from Division Superintendent cars to foreman cars around 1959 and this car may conceivably have been in that service. However, it may be in private service, being stored or moved on the railroad. Interesting picture.
Matthew greta pics. however the pic of the old ATSF depot in Temple is not in use any longer. It is now a RR museum. Lots of good local RR stuff both inside and outside. Plus a scale model of the depot inside on the 2nd floor. Tom
When I was there a few years ago to visit the museum, Amtrack still had a counter down stairs. Not sure if anyone worked it. They keep cutting staff and many stations are no longer manned. You can usually still wait inside for the train to come.
