Western Railroad Discussion > more from Tyler Texas

For the past several years I'd grown cold as far as railfanning goes. I'd pretty well lost interest since UP took over most everything. When I did go do a bit of fanning, it was usually to do some "ghost" railfanning, or occasionally I'd make a half hearted effort to go check out the Big New Super Frisco, or just BNSF for short.
Since I've moved to Tyler though, and since I can go down to the former Cotton Belt depot and hang out with the CBHS guys that occupy the former baggage-express building, I'm regaining the fun of railfanning. UP still looks like UP, and yeah, I still wish that the Cotton Belt and the MoP, and etc were still around with their own identities and paint schemes, but big machines working hard are just about the same as they were 20-30-40 years ago and so forth. I still get a kick out of being up close to, and watching trains no matter whether they are powered by internal or external combustion locomotives, and it's becoming less of an issue what colors they are painted. This stuff is in my blood. Three days after I was born 64+ years ago, my dad and mom brought me home to the former boxcar that sat on the ground sans trucks at Malta Colorado where Dad worked for the Rio Grande. All during my growing up years, we never did live too far from a depot on the Rio Grande's mainline. After I was grown, this changed a bit, but I still liked to be or hang out close to where the trains ran. For a few years recently, I thought that maybe I had finally changed when the UP took everything over, but I guess not, I STILL like trains! Even those of the UP.
Just a brief aside here, when I was growing up on the Rio Grande, the Rio Grande was OUR railroad, and the UP was "that other railroad". They were our competition and they weren't highly regarded by Grande folks, whether we were employees or dependents on or of the Rio Grande. That was then though, and this is now, and if most of the trains have yellow locos and no cabeese, I guess it just has to be that way, I still like trains.

Con

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This here is proof that not all locos are yellow even on the mighty UP. A couple of days ago there was a 2 unit lashup with a CSX unit and a leaser with "ALSTOM" on the side. It's colors were silver with red and blue lettering. Narurally, that was when my camera's batteries decided to quit. Any of y'all ever heard of "ALSTOM"?

Tyler is just south of Big Sandy Texas by about 20-25 miles or thereabouts. Big Sandy is where the former Cotton Belt mainline crosses the former T&P mainline, and it's still an important junction and a crew change point on Uncle Peter today. Big Sandy has gained a deserved good rep as a good place to go foamin', but Tyler ain't too bad itself, and Tyler has a lot more amenities than Big Sandy does.

Con

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CON:
As no one has jumped in here, I'll try. I'm sure there are more qualified members to answer, but I'm going to try. Alstom Canada rebuilt many ex-SD40's early in 2000 for FURX for leasing by them to CSX. (CSX is always short on power) They were painted in the green and silver scheme that I'm sure you have seen. After the first 50, the deal collapsed and the next 50 were leased directly to CSX by Alstom, but were lettered GCFX. They were painted in a light gray. You didn't say what the number was on the Alstom unit you saw, but they did paint GCFX 3072 in a silver with red and blue striping. Starting with #3103, they were lettered CEFX, for CIT to lease. (Confusing, ain't it) C SX still has
a bunch of these on lease and that's probably who has the unit you saw.Some of these last 50 were painted silver and most were painted blue with 2 stripes.
I thought Alstom quit rebuilding, but don't know for sure.

Frank, in Tennessee

Thanks Frank.

Con