A Sunday Afternoon with a Warbonnet

This adventure started at home while I was surfing the Internet aimlessly, I get a Facebook message from Steve (Steven Welch for future references), "M SLAAMS1 02A should be departing Slaton soon with a Warbonnet leading a GEVO and then a SD40-2 3rd out." The lazy Sunday afternoon was about to get a lot more productive. (The morning was productive. Miranda and I bought and assembled a recliner, 3-shelf bookcase and rolling kitchen cart!) Anyway, instead of napping we killed about an hour watching shows online before heading out the door to catch what the crews call "the SLAAMS train" at Canyon Junction.

We got to the junction around 5PM and there was no sign of the train so we drove around to 2nd St. to see into the north end of the yard, no headlights, no engines, no SLAAMS. I texted Steve asking if he could find out where they were and whether it was worth moving or just being patient. "By West Slaton 1655! The local is ahead of him" received at 5:06PM. That means he left Slaton 10 minutes ago and at 55mph wouldn't be getting to Lubbock for another 10 minutes or so. We took off for the south end of the yard to follow the line towards Slaton to head him off. We didn't make it very far before we saw a headlight coming at us. I turned the car around and headed for one of my favorite spots by East Lubbock looking back at the Attebury Grain LLC complex.

I've been lucky and the Warbonnets I've seen have all been in great shape and BNSF 759 was no exception!

We drove back to Canyon Junction to wait for them to do their switching before heading north to Plainview and Amarillo. (SLAAMS is the Slaton, TX to Amarillo, TX manifest that works Lubbock and Plainview on the way.) After a few minutes of nothing happening, we drove back to the apartment to get my telephoto lens which I had forgotten. We got back and they were in the same exact spot, but I noticed there was something green in the consist now. They had picked up an ex-BN SD40-2. A few moments later, the conductor queued up the radio and gave directions for the next move. I hopped out of the car to shoot them coming under the Marsha Sharp Freeway (US 82/4th St.).

We went back to the west side of the tracks by the actual junction to wait for their final moves and their departure out of town. I took a few shots of them sitting by the ex-ATSF cantilever signal to kill time knowing they still had a few moves to make.

 
From our viewpoint on 2nd St. we saw a gang of 5 puppies run across the street towards the tracks. With nothing better to do, we decided to go see them up close.

It proved to be worth the side trip because the engineer of the sitting SLAAMS waved me over to the curb to give me his email address to send him some photos. It was nice to finally meet someone who knew that I was just a railfan rather than calling me in as a suspicious person which has happened twice already.

We drove back to our spot on 2nd St. on the west side of the tracks and watched the shadows grow longer and longer and slowly creep up the locomotive until it was completely dark. There wasn't much light left... I noticed the shadow of the signal on the silos next to the tracks and figured I'd shoot something while waiting (and praying) for them to leave.

Finally, the sun ducked under the Ave. Q bridge behind us, fell below the tree line and ended any chance of getting the BNSF 759 in sunlight under the signal. I ran up onto the bridge to see what the shot looked like for future reference and took one last photo of the SLAAMS before heading back home for dinner.