Western Railroad Discussion > Lights out!

This afternoon, I found myself in Elgin, TX for a few hours. Since Elgin is on the Austin Western East Sub, I decided to try and find their almost-daily 112 job (Manor to Giddings turn) once I was free. The 112 job pretty reliably hits Elgin by 4-4:30 PM, so I drove east and was surprised that I got almost all the way to Giddings without finding it. I did pass a brand new industry spur in Paige which crosses Highway 20; looks like it's going to be some sort of aggregate industry. Great to see new carload industries in 2025, especially since a portion of Austin Western's revenue directly funds Austin transit via CapMetro's ownership of the line.

1) Upon pulling up to Giddings, I found the train tied down with no lights and no crew. I texted an AWRR conductor friend and he told me that the crew on 112 ran out of time, thanks to a downed tree on the ROW on their trip east this morning and that they'd just start the job in Giddings tomorrow morning. Bummer! With the absence of further AWRR action for the day, I drove into downtown Giddings to see if I could find any action on the UP Giddings Sub. 

2) After a bit of a lull in Giddings, I caught BNSF Z-EAPCHI (Priority Intermodal, Eagle Pass, TX to Chicago, IL) rocketing through town behind a quartet of locomotives. BNSF has trackage rights over this line and runs 5-10 trains a day through Giddings. 

3) I wasn't prepared for the speed of this train, but I thought the weathering patterns on this trailing unit were too interesting not to share despite the cut off image

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4) Shortly after Z-EAPCHI passed, its "counterpart", the Z-ALTEAP (Priority Intermodal, Haslet, TX/Alliance Yard to Eagle Pass, TX) pulled out of the siding in Giddings with one ES44 and no headlights or ditchlights on, even as it appriached a public grade crossing. I'm not sure if the lights were simply burnt out or mistakenly switched off, but a friend called it in to make sure the crew was aware of the malfunctioning safety device.

As for the title of the post, I found it funny that 2 of the 3 trains I saw today had "lights out" if you will, even if one was stationary. 


Thanks for viewing!

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Nice catches. Surprised to hear the number of BNSF trains estimated through there? Unlikely all lights were out, probably just forgot to turn them back on. Before rule changes old Santa Fe crews on transcon often left the lights on dim because of meeting so many trains. When I left there was no dimming when having RUNNING meet on multple mains.
JB

3rdswitch Wrote:
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> Nice catches. Surprised to hear the number of BNSF
> trains estimated through there? Unlikely all
> lights were out, probably just forgot to turn them
> back on. Before rule changes old Santa Fe crews on
> transcon often left the lights on dim because of
> meeting so many trains. When I left there was no
> dimming when having RUNNING meet on multple
> mains.
> JB

There's four regular daily trains, two intermodals and two manifests. But on any given day, there's at least one or two others - BNSF runs a weekly-ish sand train to San Antonio, a semi-frequent ethanol train to San Antonio, a few near-daily auto trains (one to San Antonio and one to Eagle Pass), several other manifests that run once every 10 days or so, and then occasional grain trains. It's also worth remembering that this part of BNSF's central TX trackage rights (West Point to Caldwell) is bi-directional running. In New Braunfels (which is directional southbound only trackage rights on BNSF), there have been five BNSF trains that have passed the railcam just today and there's still a couple hours left in the day

What constitutes rocketing through town? 20 MPH, 30'? 50'? 60'?
Round here 40 is track speed and considering the curves is pretty good.There is a lower speed through a tunnel a couple sharper corner bits at 35.
Go

Gonut1 Wrote:
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> What constitutes rocketing through town? 20 MPH,
> 30'? 50'? 60'?
> Round here 40 is track speed and considering the
> curves is pretty good.There is a lower speed
> through a tunnel a couple sharper corner bits at
> 35.
> Go

I'd say around 50, slowed down a bit for the curve just north of town. I'm not sure if the Giddings has been upgraded for 60 MPH operation; the Austin Sub recently was upped from 55 to 60 for most of its run