Western Railroad Discussion > Two-day trip to God's Country

I left Manchaca early Friday morning for a trip to Tyler by way of Hearne. First stop was at Valley Junction. Rail traffic was pretty slow. From there I headed to Tyler to check out the Cotton Belt Museum in the old depot. Got a great tour by a very gracious host. Thank you.

What follows is a hodge-podge of stuff representing my journey.

Mike

1. Empty grain making the turn north from the Austin Sub onto the Ft. Worth Sub. It was there when I arrived at 08:00 and finally got moving shortly after 09:00.
2. Closeup of new antenna at Valley Jct. I saw several of these awaiting installation on my way up from Austin.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/04/12 05:40 by PALuvR.

---

---

Since Con was on my mind, I had to include a couple of interesting loads I caught at Valley Jct.

3. Windmill tower section? This is the first of the two I had to pull off the road to let by.
4. Bed of a pretty good sized dump truck.

---

---

I finally made it to Tyler and the rest of these shots were taken there.

5-6. DRGW crane and pile driver
7. SP woodchip car

---

---

---

Last one is a NS-led autorack train WB approaching the depot

---

Awesome,

Any more pic's of the D&RGW equipment.

Thanks...James

James,

I did see one open hopper that I was unable to get a shot of. However, here are a couple that look similar to the one I saw in Tyler. These cars were on trains through Austin at various times.

These pics may have been posted previously. 1st shot was taken 8-19-12 and the second one on 1-14-12.

Mike

---

---

The Rio Grande crane and pile driver have been in the Tyler yard for quite some time now.

Nice mix. Con (the late xtra1188W) would have loved your post.

Cheers,
Jack

Nice variety of roads.
What is "God's country?"

The DRG 093 ( Origionally from the Denver area ) has been assigned duties of training new and old crane operators on the UP at Tyler . The last I knew was they have set up a training curriculum to train crane operators and get them NCCCO certified. The crane is used so that the operators in training can complete an obsticale coarse with this equipment, part of the certification process.

I'm wondering if photo #3 is a Falcon 9 booster that is either coming or going to Space-X's McGregor, TX facility?

Con always referred to Tyler (TX) as being in "God's Country". And I sure ain't gonna' argue with Con.

Mike

Here are a couple more of the mystery object in pic #3 to help possibly identify it.

Mike

---

---

Here's a few more of the 093 from my files

---

---

---

Three more pics of 093 , this crane is a 40-60 ton capacity and the Hammer is a B250 Berminghammer . Its the smallest hammer in the fleet of Bridge Construction cranes for the UP hence its assignment as a training crane. It doesn't get much use.

---

---

---

Your "mystery loads" are, as you correctly guessed, wind turbine tower sections. The antenna in your second photo is part of the Positive Train Control System the railroads have been mandated to implement.

Sorry for being oldfashioned and calling them "windmills" when they actually are wind turbines. I do know better.

Mike