Zipping along.
On a warm 2024 winter evening, JB Hunt containers in a westbound BNSF intermodal train breeze past the landscape as they roll down Main Track 2 coming off the Canadian River bridge in Canadian, Texas.
“Now, one of these days
I’m gonna climb that mountain
Walk up there among them clouds
Where the cotton’s high
And the corn’s a-growin’
And there ain’t no fields to plow…”
It's been a long time since this brace of old Case tractors busted the sod of the High Plains around White Deer, Texas. They've given up the farm life, moved to town and picked out a plot of choice real estate near the tracks to enjoy their retirement years sipping lemonade and watching the trains speed through town, conjuring up memories of the Madame Queen and her ilk of 2-10-4s flashing their 74-inch drivers as they sped tonnage across the Texas panhandle.
And then there were the ALco PAs roaring through, smoking up the skies with the San Francisco Chief on the drawbar.
Ahhhh.....
The good ol' days.
Where have they gone?
At 3:49 on the cloudy Sunday afternoon of January 21st, 2024, they'll just have to settle for ES44DC 7500 and SD70ACe 9067 rolling another westbound stack train in a seemingly endless procession of stack trains that speed across the Transcon, their diesel motors throbbing like a hearbeat---
The steel rails as an artery carrying the lifeblood of commerce in a never-ending flow of east-west traffic.
The lemonade is good, and as old-timers are wont to do, they complain about everything "new-fangled."
But they still rise up and take notice when the trains come to town.
On the damp and cool evening of October 10th, 2022, a westbound intermodal train slips through Tolar, New Mexico and tips over the western edge of the Llano Estacado, beginning its decent to Fort Sumner and the Pecos River.
Paneless.
GP40X 3031 is seen through the windows of the long-shuttered used car dealer as the unit switches the grain track at Black, Texas on the Hereford Subdivision on the Friday afternoon of April 5th, 2024.
Steel ribbons and wild plum.
The wild Chickasaw Plum in full bloom tells that Spring has arrived on the rolling grasslands of the far northeastern Texas Panhandle. It's 6:48 pm, March 30th, 2024 along BNSF's Transcon as one of the ubiquitous GE Dash-9s tops the grade at MP431 with a long string of eastbound containers on the drawbar.
/\Coming and going. Westbound. Coburn, Texas. March 2nd, 2024. 6:13pm.\/
On a fine summer afternoon in 2023, the DPUs of a westbound unit tank train charge through White Deer, Texas on BNSF's Panhandle Subdivision.
The dispatcher in Fort Worth has weaved the Pampa Local into the fabric of westbound intermodal and grain trains, giving the pint-sized hotshot an opening to hot-foot it from Panhandle back to Amarillo late on the afternoon of September 18th, 2023.
DUPing it out on the Plains.
GE muscle brings up the rear of an eastbound grain train near White Deer, Texas on a February 2024 morning.
As a huge thunderstorm moves of towards Oklahoma, the late evening summer sun breaks out of the clouds and highlights a westbound freight passing eastbound tank cars on the Transcon somewhere between Higgins and Glazier, Texas.
It is late
The sun teeters on the escarpment
Rays bending over the ramparts
To caress the golden grasses of winter
Light and shadow sway gentle on a whisper of breeze
A rumble underfoot
Throbbing cylinders gasp for breath
Turbochargers whine on the wind
A great howling of voltage surging
Urging traction motors onward…ONWARD!
Rippling the cold air with hot exhaust
A rush
A whir of roller bearings
The spange of steel on steel
Echoes in the valley
She’s by in a flash
To fade into night
Still, yet to come
The moon on silver rails
Lights the trail
Home
Eastbound on a Summer dusk near Coburn, Texas.
Making hay at Kingsmill.
Early on a beautiful Summer 2023 morning, eastbound Erie horsepower rolls past natural horsepower stored at the Maul Feed & Seed yard in Kingsmill, Texas.
The last rays of the sun caress the cloud tops as a fast westbound freight storms down the Transcon at Glazier, Texas on a 2023 summer Saturday evening.
Morning meet at Panhandle, Texas.
For eons, the Canadian River has flowed eastward from the Sangre de Cristos, etching along the northern scarp of the Llano Estacado and depositing its sand and silt to points downstream.
And, for just as many eons, the west winds have scoured the dusty surface of the Llano, carrying seedpods and soils aloft and dropping them once again to earth over what are now the Plains of Oklahoma and the eastern Texas Panhandle.
Over the millennia, Nature has sculpted and contoured the land of Lipscomb County, Texas. Bluestem grasses and sage carpeted the sandhills, punctuated here and there with dwarf yucca and wild plum. Lightning-sparked range fires burned out the trees and less-hearty invaders, leaving the native growth to recover quickly and thrive.
Less than two centuries ago, the bison roamed here, as did the Kiowa and the Comanche.
Only 3,000 people reside within its 932 square miles, and, for the most part, they have chosen to leave the land as they found it: An austere example of wild and rolling frontier beauty.
Here, as afternoon storm clouds ride a February west wind, the 6942 stares down a yellow approach signal as it rumbles gently across the grasses of Lipscomb County, the bluestem wearing its seasonal rust color, the sage dry and muted, and the dwarf yucca sprouting from the red sandy earth; an earth that in all likelihood was transported grain-by-grain on the west winds from somewhere up on the Llano.
Now, only Angus and Hereford roam behind barbed wire fences, and GEs and EMDs are confined to twin steel ribbons on a roadbed hacked out of the sand by horse-drawn implements over a century ago. And rubber-tired traffic on adjacent Hwy 60 is mostly local in nature and sporadic at best.
While the pace of life in Lipscomb County might not be defined as ‘leisurely’, it is decidedly less than ‘bustling’.
Most residents prefer it that way.
Perhaps it was a fitting day to stop.
Cold.
Gray.
Silent.
Signals dark.
Main tracks empty.
Visitors from every road fill the siding---
Standing-to in the January chill to quietly pay their respects.
I did not know them.
But their families did.
Their fellow railroaders did.
They come and mourn them---
Place flowers---
And leave with only memories.
There is no solace found on the cold Panhandle wind.
Nor answers.
Lara G. Taylor
Cody Owens
KP Smith, Jr
June 28th, 2016.
BNSF.
Panhandle, Texas.
With fast eastbound containers on the drawbar, five GE motors blaze a trail over the crest of the grade at Cuyler, Texas at 4:50 on the chilly afternoon of January 19th, 2024.
The sun rises across the sage of Hemphill County, Texas as an eastbound stack train slips away towards Oklahoma on Memorial Day 2022.
Winter dress on The Plains.
Westbound near Glazier, Texas.
A rainy night in Texas.
An eastbound hotshot rolls fast across Purcell Avenue in Canadian, Texas at 4:33 on the cold and rainy morning of January 5th, 2024.
Shadows at Cuyler.
"Against the grain."
Cuyler, Texas.
"Hey! Pass me by..."
The words of Johnny Rodriguez hums in the rush of cars and the throbbing tempo of GEVOS heading in opposite directions---
It's been many years since diesel was 5 cents a gallon---
Time has surely passed by and left the old gas station in the dust of the Llano Estacado---
The door is padlocked---
The tree is decorated---
The junk for sale is at rock-bottom, season-ending clearance prices---
But the sales staff have all headed home for the Holidays, leaving the errant and interested traveler to explore light and shadows and shutter speed all by himself out on the edge of Pampa, Texas.
On a chilly November 2023 morning, a westbound stack train rolls past a placid stock tank as it works its way up the Red Deer Creek valley west of Miami, Texas.
SD70ACe 9167 speeds past the signals at Coburn, Texas as it rolls merchandise west along the Transcon.
It's 3:33 on the crystal-clear afternoon of Wednesday, December 6th, 2023 and we're looking straight up W. Purcell Avenue in Canadian, Texas as engineer Jeff Ford rolls the H KCKBEL1 05 manifest west through town on the BNSF Transcon. The Hemphill County courthouse is in the left distance.
The DPU of an eastbound grain train slips past the crossovers at Coburn, Texas and heads into a thunderstorm early on a July 2023 morning.
A crystal Autumn evening
Of golden light
And cobalt skies
Yonder comes the train
A dash of goods
Coast-bound
To make haste across the Plains
Into the sun
Towards night again
Following headlight's beam
Aglow on polished steel
Twin ribbons
An aged destiny
Autumn on The Plains.
A westbound hotshot rolls fast down the Transcon near Cuyler, Texas on the cloudy morning of November 9th, 2023.
Soon to be celebrating their 33rd birthday, former BNSF SD60Ms 1441 & 1451 roll the Pampa-Waynoka local east through the Red Deer Creek valley near Miami, Texas on the morning of November 22nd, 2023.
With a solid block of tank cars on the drawbar, a clean pair of SD60Ms roll the eastbound Pampa-Waynoka local across the rolling grasslands of Hemphill County, Texas at Coburn early on the morning of November 22nd, 2023.
Dog Days
To dream of youth
Hazy memories of days without end
We wanted to go everywhere
And do everything
To saddle the wind
And see the stars
To taste oceans
And deserts
And prairies
And call them home
It has known us
Our footprints have fallen upon it
Our tears have etched through its dust on our cheek
It has cradled us in sleep
But there is splendor in the morn
To rise anew and step into it
To inhale the grasses
Still damp with night
Of hay fresh baled
The very earth rendered open
Her soul laid bare
The bosom of life
We stand-to on the cusp of night
An August glow warms our face
Hazy memories dance upon the horizon
Of far away and long ago
Fleeting
Slipping from our grasp
We were there
In but a blink of an eye ago
Alas,
The world turned
And took us with it
---Rick Malo©2023---
The eastern Texas Panhandle was wracked with severe storms early on the morning of May 3rd, 2023, as a westbound BNSF freight rolls across the fill near Glazier.
Morning in Hemphill County, Texas.
Just after sunrise on a summer Saturday morning, an eastbound hotshot rolls fast across the grasslands of Hemphill County. In the distance, through the morning haze is the escarpment of the Llano Estacado rising 600 feet above the plains of the eastern Panhandle.
A dusk in Texas.
There's but a few yards of Lone Star real estate left for our eastbound hotshot to traverse before crossing into the Oklahoma Territory on a summer evening near Higgins, Texas.
In the hot pre-dawn hours of an August morning, a big GE dpu slips past the intermediates at milepost 518 at Cuyler, Texas as an empty unit grain train heads back east.
6206 at Black, Texas on a hot evening in August 2020.
With the siding in tiny Glazier, Texas a convenient place for westbound containers to wait out the supply chain crisis at backlogged West Coast ports, a fast eastbound hotshot slams past on the main just as the sun rises over the sagebrush of the Texas Panhandle on the morning of May 31st, 2022.
The setting sun casts fire on the mesa somewhere west of Belen, New Mexico as a pair of GEs roll east with autoracks on the drawbar. February 10th, 2021.
"October Morn."
A fast hotshot rolls westbound through Tolar, New Mexico on the morning of October 4th, 2022.
I'll paraphrase the words of my friend Jeff Ford, native Texas Panhandler and BNSF engineer:
"In the winter, half the dirt in Amarillo picks up and moves to Lubbock. In the summer, it goes back home to Amarillo."
We're just east of Panhandle, Texas at 3:14 pm on Sunday, May 29th, 2022 and the eastbound local out of Amarillo with three SD40-2s surrounding a lone SD70MAC is cause enough for us to brave southwest winds of 40mph gusting up to 60.
Catching rays at Tolar.
A fast westbound hotshot slips past the setting sun at Tolar, New Mexico on October 10th, 2022.
Evening thunderstorms and westbound containers at Tolar, New Mexico.
Set against a New Mexican sky hazy with smoke from the wildfires near Las Vegas, C44-9W 4193 and a sister roll westbound containers down grade off the Llano Estacado near Tolar on the afternoon of May 15th, 2022.
Twilight meet at Encino.
Eastbound autoracks dim their headlights for westbound containers out on the double-track main of the BNSF Transcon across the grasslands of New Mexico on the evening of October 4th, 2022.
Westbound at sunset.
Tolar, New Mexico.
"Ominosity."
Westbound near Encino, New Mexico. 4:07pm, October 4th, 2022.
6603 West. Transcon. Milepost 695.6. Tolar, New Mexico. 6:38 am, October 4th, 2022.
With westbound hotshot merchandise on the drawbar, five of GE's finest round the curve and lead the charge upgrade after crossing the Pecos River at Fort Sumner, New Mexico late on the afternoon of May 15th, 2022.
With a crewless intermodal train waiting in the siding for the backlog to clear at West Coast ports, the rising sun and swaying sand sage greet an eastbound train as it rolls fast through tiny Glazier, Texas.
Three GE motors roll a solid eastbound block of covered hoppers fast across the Llano Estacado west of Melrose, New Mexico on the afternoon of August 3rd, 2022.
A 70mph brick in the wall at Black, Texas.
Summer afternoon lights and shadows on the Transcon at Tolar, New Mexico.
