Western Railroad Discussion > Prelude to a 'banner day'

I took off early Friday morning with the idea of spending an entire day chasing around my former Santa Fe working territory down in the Flint Hills. BNSF’s massive, multi-million dollar DT project is now complete between Ellinor & El Dorado Lake at the west end of the former siding at Chelsea. I had quite a day, putting 29 trains in the ol’ shopping cart. And it was one of those rare occasions where every coin-flip decision I had to make turned out to be correct. I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss a single train. Out of nearly 600 images shot, it looks like it’ll shakedown to around 240 keepers, give or take. I’m still fine-tuning all of the date & location/train information for each image. Today (Saturday) I was interrupted by a slight little matter called my “50th Anniversary High School Graduation” event in Manhattan. I spent the whole afternoon with a bunch of my old classmates. ALL of us were trying to remember what we used to look like... :^)

I’m posting a shot from early in my day, with the promise that there will be a very large thread to follow...

1. BNSF 8375 west is approaching the S Washington St crossing in Cassoday, KS. It’s 7:50 AM on May 26, 2023. From L to R: main #1, main #2 & Cassoday siding. Before daylight is done, 29 trains will have passed through my viewfinder...

Thanks for looking!
Lance Garrels
santafe199

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Interesting perspective.
—Mac

Nice one Lance. Look forward to your future thread.

Kim Heusel

Nice shot, Lance!  Are they running eastbounds that way yet?

texchief1
Randy

texchief1 Wrote: > ... Are they running eastbounds that way yet?

I should have mentioned that the La Junta Sub was under a day-long tie-gang track window, so ALL trains EB & WB were running the Emporia Sub on this day. It was the main reason I went down there. I got really lucky a couple of times with "rolling meet" shots. I got even luckier and bagged a "rolling run-around sequence". By sheer dumb luck I shot a WB stacker on main #1 approaching Matfield Green and 15 seconds later on main #2 here came the manifest it was running around...

Lance



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/28/23 09:01 by santafe199.

Terrific.  Great idea.

Very enjoyable Series. Those 50 year class event can be quite interesting, lol.

Larry

santafe199 Wrote:

> Before daylight is done, 29 trains will have passed through my viewfinder...

If this keeps up, you may have to double-track your viewfinder. ;^)

Evan_Werkema Wrote: > ... you may have to double-track your viewfinder ...

Ah yes, the good ol' days!

:^)