Friday afternoon on the Plainview Subdivision sees ES44C4 leading a northbound freight past the old AT&SF depot in Plainview, Texas. April 5th, 2024.
Sunday afternoon, March 3rd, 2024 is bright and sunny up on the Llano Estacado as a northbound BNSF freight rolls up the Plainview Subdivision past the abandoned remains of the old grain elevator at Kaffir, Texas, halfway between Tulia and Happy.
Like so many small, independent elevators throughout the High Plains, Kaffir became shuttered and forsaken when the railroad pushed for the loading of 110-car unit grain trains at facilities that could handle them. Grain is now trucked to the super elevators at Amarillo and Shattuck, and to the Agri-Producer's elevator in Plainview where a balloon track has been installed to facilitate their loading.
It's 1:48 on the bright afternoon of December 5th, 2023 and we're up on BNSF's Plainview Subdivision as a pair of GEs motor a northbound freight past the Ma Se Ca corn flour mill at Furguson, Texas just south of Plainview.
It's very late on a scorching June 2020 afternoon, and a hot wind roaring up out of Texas bends the wheat of Stanton County, Kansas, funneling into the open cab windows of a pair of hand-me-down B40-8s that Fred Simon has running long-hood-first in the Run-2 notch at an agonizing 10mph. By the time he reaches Saunders way out on the Colorado frontier, it will be just after 9pm, and still just as hot. There are four old company ballast hoppers in the siding at Saunders that need to find their way back to Satanta, 62 rail miles back east on the Manter Branch of the Cimmaron Valley Railroad.
Conductor Matt Schnurbusch will help make the joint, and by the time they leave Saunders, the sun will have dipped below the western horizon, and the hours-of-service clock will reach zero.
The crew will enjoy an airconditioned ride back home in the company Ford.
Flight of the Toaster.
With fast westbound freight on the drawbar, ES44C4 6562 casts its shadow on a block of autoracks parked in the siding at Panhandle, Texas early on the morning of February 3rd, 2024.
It's 8:11 on the hot Saturday evening of July 8th, 2023 along the Golden State Route west of Stratford, Texas as a westbound Union Pacific freight rumbles along the former Rock Island trackage past the Skyland Grain elevator at Conlen.
Missa pro defunctis
I heard a voice from heaven, saying unto me, Write---
From henceforth blessed are the dead which die in the Lord: even so saith the Spirit: for they rest from their labours.
(Revelation 14:13)
It’s been almost 40 years since a crew performed an air test on Train No.6, then climbed aboard as a grizzled hogger gently notched out a pair of SW1500s and O/S-ed Snyder, Texas at 6:45pm and trundled the 30 miles across the High Plains back to home, the scant tonnage picked up from the AT&SF interchange barely taxing the veteran EMDs as they made their graveyard run to Roscoe and a connection with the T&P.
The cries of the 1970s for industry deregulation began to dig the graves of little carriers whose efficacy had long been in question---
The bill that Harley Staggers hung his name onto, and that President Jimmy Carter penned his signature upon in 1980---
Shoved them into the hole and covered them up.
That the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific lasted until 1984 is not miraculous by any means, but it was tenacious and sought to live up to the “& Pacific” as long as it could.
Until it couldn’t any longer.
One fell swoop severed the iron just west of Roscoe, and the winds that scour the Texas Plains have sought to erase all traces from existence ever since.
And here we are, steeped in the fast-fading light of a sacred Sunday evening, rummaging through the flatlands for trinkets and baubles and the resting places for things that once were, the gentle ‘whoosh---whoosh’ of turbine blades as a wind-driven Gregorian chant calling the faithful to genuflect, the weekenders oblivious to all but their modern music and their I-phones as they blindly whiz past on their ways back to classes in Lubbock or some God-forsaken job in the Metroplex.
But for the true believers, there is a moment that quickens the heart, an apparition that might suggest No.6 is still running on time tonight, perhaps with a single car of diesel fuel for the company tanks in Roscoe.
It is a vision that for certain garners a smile, even for those who know the impossibilities of such an occurrence.
But tonight, we are truly at the end of the line, where rails of the old RS&P play-out in the sands of Nolan County, and things usually come to die; our concerns lay not with the old tank car which has been shorn of its external sheathing and its insulation in preparation for what might well be an appointment with its acetylene-assisted destiny, but with the venerated EMD, itself a graduate of the Class of 1951. Though black rattle can paint obscures the ‘U.S. ARMY’ that once adorned the hood, long-time Eagle Railcar Services employee No.2009 still wears her yellow stripes on the frame sill, a reminder of her years of tireless military service before she came to shuffle cars about the Roscoe plant.
Perhaps it will dodge the bullet, languishing here year after year as the dust and the winds pummel it until, in a sort of deja-vu all over again, as with the R-S Pacific’s own SW8 No.200, it will one day just not be here anymore, disappearing from the Eagle roster in the dead of night never to be seen or heard again.
Perhaps it was only left at the end of the track by a crew hasty to start their weekend, it more expedient to switch off the prime mover and jump in the airconditioned company pickup for the two-and-a-half mile ride back to the shops for a wash-up before punching out on Friday afternoon; the shiny red Trackmobile they passed as they turned into the former RS&P yard is, quite possibly, a sign of things to come.
The hour is late, indeed.
And as we wrest ourselves from reverie, vows to return soon and continue the vigil are offered forth.
There are no candles to light, nor holy water to dip a finger in, nor rosary beads to count---
Only a juxtaposition of eras and the inexorable crush of time, where once-modern conveyances have outlived their usefulness---
A casket open for all the world to see, yet the passers-by don’t bat an eye---
As the choir of turbines stands dutifully to chant their monotonous call to prayer.
It was a good run.
Missa pro defunctis
Rick Malo©2023
As a massive thunderstorm hammers the parched Llano Estacado north of Tulia, Texas on Easter Sunday 2023, a Beech King Air hurries west out of its path as an old Dash-9 tags along on the tail end of a grain block rolling south on BNSF's Plainview Subdivision.
Wading through a sea of Wheat.
On a hot, dusty and hazy June 2020 evening, engineer Frederick Simon heads a couple of long-hood-first hand-me-down B40-8s west across the wheat fields along the Manter Branch of the Cimarron Valley Railroad.
Afternoon showers.
Courtesy of the Ogallala aquifer, a field of young corn and a murder of crows enjoy respite from a blazing hot 104F degree June 2020 afternoon along the Cimarron Valley Railroad near Ryus, Kansas.
Engineer Fred Simon will enjoy no such treat as he trundles a short eastbound freight back to the homeport of Satanta, only a bottle of water poured over his head to mitigate the hot southerly winds that pour misery through open cab windows.
Air-conditioned cabs are not priority on a shortline budget.
Roll-by at Chub Siding, TP549 near Midland, Texas.
Due to the fickle nature of internet connections, we were unable to participate in #NationalWedgeDay.
So, we offer forth this---
The iron is most definitely high on the old T & P mainline at Penwell, Texas as a fast Union Pacific stack train rolls east up the 1% grade that assaults the western ramparts of the Llano Estacado---The High Plains of Texas---at 3:33 pm on Wedge Day, March 4th, 2023.
Tamron 15-30 at 15mm, f13, 1/320, ISO 100.
The afternoon of October 9th, 2022 finds us trackside along the old C & S in Colorado. Fresh from the New Elk load-out in Jansen, export metallurgic coal bound for Guyamas, Mexico strains the drawbar of Union Pacific C44ACM 6213 as she leads her northbound train around the great loop at Ludlow, site of the 1914 massacre of striking coal miners and their families during the Colorado Coalfield War. Union Pacific has the contract to handle this move.
Until its removal in 1959, Colorado & Southeastern's line between Delagua and Barnes crossed here on a fly-over.
Sunset at the CIG Logistics facility in Big Lake, TX on December 11th, 2022, sees CIT SD40-2 6060 idling away on the plant trackage while FerroMex SD70ACe 4096 murmurs away the evening on the former KCMO-now-Texas Pacifico mainline.
Winter sunset portrait at Big Lake, Texas.
Cold Nebraska dawn.
As an Arctic cold front roars across the land east of Alliance, Nebraska, a lone GE unit rolls coal empties west on BNSF's Sand Hills Subdivision on the morning of January 14th, 2022.
A pair of ES44ACs roll coal empties west on BNSF's Black Hills Subdivision at Moorcroft, Wyoming on the cold morning of January 12th, 2022.
/\ CIT SD40-2 at sunset. Big Lake, Texas. December 11th, 2022. \/
Not much moves on the rails in Big Lake, Texas anymore.
The Texas Pacifico barely runs enough trains to break up the patina of rust on the railheads of the old Kansas City, Mexico & Orient, most of the tonnage being covered hoppers of cement and frac sand, and tank cars of hydrochloric acid, all being used downhole in the oil wells of the Permian Basin.
It's 33 degrees just before noon on Saturday, November 19th, 2022. Amid the sleet and drizzle and occasional snowflake all is quiet at the CIG Logistics facility in Big Lake as slumbering CIT SD40-2 6060 adds a bit of color to an otherwise cold and dreary day.
The chance to catch ANY power along the line, moving or not, is just too much to pass up.
En Memoria
It's 5:21 pm on February 9th, 2021, and the very northern reaches of the Texas panhandle are a long way from California. An epic Polar Vortex is roaring down out of Canada, and here along the Golden State Route, the High Plains are beginning to show the effects of the freezing rain and sleet and snow that will shut down the Texas power grid in a few days.
Our hogger has a green for his northbound containers somewhere in the wide-open south of Stratford, Texas, where adjacent US54 is becoming dicey to drive on. Here's hoping that the cab heater and the weather sealing are both in good working order because by the time they reach Liberal, Kansas, they'll be in a full-on blizzard.
In the proverbial shadow of Chimney Rock, and with a cold front rolling in over Scott's Bluff in the background, SD70ACes 8313 and 8768 muscle coal loads east along the old Oregon Trail through the North Platte River valley at milepost 130 on Union Pacific's Powder River line near McGrew, Nebraska on the afternoon of January 14th, 2022.
Dawn.
Lamar, Colorado.
Saturday, January 8th, 2022.
Here's the wide-angle companion to yesterday's tele-zoom. The cold front is spilling over the bluff as the 4156 and her sisters roll southbound merchandise down out of the Nebraska sandhills and into the valley of the North Platte River near Bridgeport on the morning of January 14th, 2022,
As dust and chaff and tumbleweeds ride the gale-force winds of a cold front sweeping down over BNSF's Angora Sub out of Alliance, the 4156 rolls southbound merchandise out of the sand hills of Nebraska and into the valley of the North Platte River near Bridgeport on the morning of January 14th, 2022.
"I will guard everything within the limits of my post and quit my post only when properly relieved."--
---The First General Order of the United States Army.
Here, on the Great Plains of the American West, a sentinel stands fast at his post, weathered by the treachery of prairie blizzards and by the blistering of summers at their worst, and everything imaginable that could be driven by man and by the incessant winds has etched a name upon its lonely form.
It has stood silent for decades, ages perhaps, granting safe passage to the curious and to the implements of husbandry and to all those who seek what lay beyond a few planks of wood and shovels full of dirt thrown down between ancient and rusted 88-lb rail that knows the weight of a passing train on nothing more than an infrequent basis.
Here, as the maw of night approaches, promising a grand sprinkling of stars and galaxies over all of the frontier, a little train sways gentle across the prairie grasses as it heads towards an end to a long day, and our guardian, steadfast in his dedication, bends an arm and tenders forth a salute as he stands at the ready to perform its duties to the fullest extent.
Carry on, Soldier.
---
The Cimarron Valley Railroad near Saunders, Kansas. June 2020.
"Evening Lineup."
On a gorgeous Fall evening, rusted Barbers and ASFs gather on the last remnant of the old Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific as they enjoy another beautiful sunset over the High Plains of Texas north of Roscoe.
As they roll north along the old Colorado & Southern, an empty coal train and its attendant DPUs slip underneath a summertime thunderstorm pounding the grasslands near Grenville, New Mexico on the afternoon of August 7th, 2022.
After a long climb up out of the Rio Grande River valley, the eastbound Southwest Chief reaches the apex of the grade at Glorieta, New Mexico on the dark and damp afternoon of August 4th, 2022.
With eastbound Red Ball merchandise on the drawbar, a pair of General Electric Thoroughbreds slice through a cold and blustery April 11th, 2022 afternoon as the roll fast across the Heartland on Norfolk Southern's ex-Wabash mainline near Bement, Illinois.
Rain at Monahans.
With a string of covered hoppers on the drawbar, a Union Pacific freight just out of Monahans, Texas rolls east down the ex-T&P mainline past stands of wispy sand sage and thickets of native Havard shin oak on the evening of September 1st, 2022.
With an Arctic cold front hot on its heels, a BNSF manifest freight roars south from Alliance, Nebraska on the morning of January 14th, 2022.
There's a storm front rolling south across the corn belt at 11:07 on April 7th, 2022 as Norfolk Southern SD70ACC 1816 and SD70ACe 1148 team up to roll eastbound containers fast across the former Wabash mainline near Bement, Illinois.
In June 2021, the Verde Canyon Railroad is just that---Verdant!
We're in New Mexico on the old Fort Worth & Denver between Clayton and Des Moines on the hot Sunday afternoon of August 7th, 2022 as an empty BNSF coal train charges northbound into a classic summertime downpour.
Prairie grass sunrise east of Black, Texas on the BNSF Transcon. 6:08 am, May 15th, 2022.
As the sun breaks through the clouds moments before sunset, a long westbound stack train struggles past Cochise, Arizona as it climbs up toward Dragoon Summit at 5:27 pm on February 16th, 2021.
Under solid cloud cover, a solid block of covered hoppers rolls east across the muddy fields of Piatt County, Illinois on Norfolk Southern's ex-Wabash mainline near Bement at 10:41 am on April 11th, 2022.
With the ports of Long Beach and Los Angeles gridlocked, Memorial Day weekend of 2022 found every siding along the Transcon in Texas jammed full of West Coast-bound containers waiting for some place to go. At 6:24 am on May 31st, one such train waits out the early morning hours at Glazier as a westbound Sweet Bran train, with Bethgons convereted to carry animal feed, speeds through town on its way to Cargill in Friona, TX, while an eastbound intermodal train fades off in the distance.
We're up on the BNSF Transcon as ET44C4 3801 leads eastbound merchandise through the tiny community of Glazier in the far northeastern Texas panhandle at 6:24 am on May 30th, 2022.
Sunrise at Cerro Gordo, Illinois on Norfolk Southern's ex-Wabash mainline. April 12th, 2022.
Northbound through downtown Tuscola, Illinois at 11:12 am on April 12th, 2022.
Amid the howl of dynamic brakes holding back tonnage on a mountain grade, the very last rays of an April day still manage to peek over the ridge and highlight the flank of an eastbound freight as it rolls down out of Paisano Pass and into Alpine, Texas on Union Pacific's Sunset Route.
A very late-running westbound Sunset Limited roars up the grade out of Alpine, Texas at 12:10 pm on December 7th, 2021.
Morning at Alamogordo.
We're on the southern end of the Golden State Route as SD70ACe-T4 3023 idles just south of town as it waits for a new crew at 6:27 on June 27th, 2021.
A fast eastbound hotshot flushes the pigeons and rattles the silos as it storms through Plains, Kansas on the ex-Rock Island Golden State Route at 7:08 pm on Saturday June 13th, 2020. With Frederick Manfred Simon.
With the setting sun diffused by smoke from New Mexican wildfires, fast freight rolls west on the BNSF Transcon at 7:37 on May 14th, 2022.
Sacred Sunday
It is in the absolute aloneness that we relish, a disconnect from the everything of life.
To feel the silence of a world yet to wake from its slumber, breezes still cool and whispering faint remembrances of midnight long before Sagittarius faded in the dusty southern skies.
There is sanctity here, and we wrap humility round us, the smallness of oneself seemingly lost in the vastness of it all, the prairies and the Plains, the curve of the earth and all the bodies of heaven above.
To taste the dried grasses as they crunch delicate and become the dust of footfalls, a reminder that summer is not lost yet to November.
It is a day just tinted by sunlight,
A morn yet robbed of peace,
Even as the gentle throb of machines is, by no accident, nearby.
There is glory in motion and in the sounding of trumpets, of light at speed and steel behind it, inertia unstoppable.
They head for the sunrise.
They head for Sunday.
There will be no day of rest for them.
-
It’s Sunday morning on the Transcon across Texas. At 6:31 on August 2nd, 2020 a fast eastbound manifest freight slams by a train laden with animal feed waiting in the siding at Summerfield.
Rick Malo©2022
