Nostalgia & History > Texas Tuesday, with semaphores. Location, anybody?

I never got to Houston often enough to understand the RR geography very well.  This shot dates from late 1985-early 1986, in a period when I made several trips down from Dallas for business meetings.  But I don't remember why or exactly when. 

Or exactly where for that matter.  I assume from the signal that I'm 47.2 miles out of town, but which line I'm on is a mystery.  The only thing I remember about the shot is that I had driven down under clear skies, but that things were clouding up rapidly and I would be in pouring rain within a few minutes after taking the shot.

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Nice shot!
This was on the Houston-Dallas line 47.2 miles from the SP station in Houston.
The train is headed north just a few miles from Hempstead.
The semaphores would not last much longer.
​Gary



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/17 09:46 by gcm.

Doesn't really help narrow down the date, but the lead unit is the only SP GP38-2 that has been retired. It was wrecked 11/3/89 at Hockley, TX and scrapped shortly after that.

I want to say that this is my last trip down that way, which should establish the date. 

Tie-in was that my last day on the job in Dallas (Plano, actually) was the day after the Challenger blew up in January 1986.  It's memorable, since a lot of the people at the job I left were former NASA remote sensing people.  I spent the day cleaning out my desk, and the ordinarily very active, chatty research lab atmosphere was anything but.  I took off for a lengthy railfan trip the day after that, starting with a visit to friends in Houston and heading west from there.

I visited the Johnson space center the next day, again memorable since the shuttle simulator was roped off from the public so the investigators could use it to figure out what had happened.

So if  I'm right, this would be Challenger day + 2, making it  the afternoon of January 30, 1986.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/10/17 10:47 by march_hare.

A very nice catch wherever and whenever it was.
JB

Semaphores, Gyralites, and Lazy L's.  That's railroading!    BSB

Being afternoon, I'm thinking this is train HODAM headed for Dallas. For quite awhile, it operated with solid sets of GP38-2's. Later on, it ran with solid tunnel motors. It was a neat train to watch,and I dutifully called every day find find out when the train was called out of Houston.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/11/17 16:39 by Txhighballer.

Thanks for posting this classic SP image from South Texas.
Drove through there many times while the semaphores were up and the SP 4800's were new .
Even rode the SP 4449 Dallas to Houston steam excursion through there in 1984.-- -Kelly