After a good night's sleep and another cold shower and sink drain that did not work, I went and had breakfast then put in the corrections for yesterday's story and packed. I drove to the front of the hotel, checked out, printed the boarding pass for my Southwest Airlines flight and put five gallons of petrol in the rental car before driving to Springdale station. After checkng in with Sarah, I boarded the train in the parlour car and today's consist was Arkansas and Missouri RS-32 30, parlour 107 "Explorer", coach 106 "Mountain View", coach 105 "Golden Age" and the un-numbered caboose.
The train before we left Springdale and I was on new trackage. We departed at 8:06 and were off to Monett, or so we thought. After going through North Yard by Vogel and Lowell, we proceeded north, rolling through Roger, where the Bentonville Branch takes off from the mainline. We then ran to Avoca where we came to the north end of the large plateau on which Springdale sits, and were now in the rolling terrain. This took us to Brightwater and across the Little Sugar Bridge then to Garfield, where we climbed up and over Garfield Hill, crossing into Missouri and on through Seligman as we rolled across the undulating Missouri countryside.
The Missouri countryside.
The Missouri countryside on the way to Washburn, before crossing Wayne Hill and passing through Wayne and Exeter then crossing Missouri Highway 37 and old Highway 37 before reaching Butterfield.
A grain elevator with a large balloon track for unit trains.
A large concrete grain elevator at Hudson, north of Butterfield. Here they were arranging our train for the trip back south and the engine ran around.
Arkansas and Missouri RS-32, ex. Arkansas and Missouri 01, nee Belt Rairoad of Chicago 601 built by American Locomotive Company in 1965, waiting to perform its chore.
Our group setting up for the photo runby at Hudson.
The caboose was spotted in the siding.
The engine coupled to the train and shoved it clear of the switch.
The caboose was sitting by itself in the siding.
The passenger train was spotted on the mainline.
Our Arkansas and Missouri RS-32 30.
The engine then coupled onto the caboose to re-spot it to the end of the train.
The locomotive ran around the train.
The engine was placed on the front.
A reverse move was made in preparation for the photo runby and a 1958 GM Model PD 4104 bus arrived for the St. Louis group's trip back home.
Photo runby 1 at Purdy.
The train reversed to the crossing.
Now we would add the bus into the scene.
The bus and our train. We all reboarded for the trip back to Springdale.
