My friend Bill Compton contacted me about going to Texas to photograph the Missouri-Kansas-Texas and he had a free companion offer on Jet America, a local airline. As I had never flown, before this would be a new adventure. I asked him if we could also photograph Kansas City Southern as we would be close and he agreed. Missouri Pacific and Western Pacific had merged with Union Pacific in 1982.
4/18/1987 Bill picked me up and we drove to the Long Beach Airport to board the Jet America plane to Dallas-Fort Worth. We left late afternoon and seeing my home from the plane was a real highlight. Over Texas, we became a night flight and the Led Zeppelin song was playing in my head. We landed on time and Bill had organized a rental car, then we drove to Motel 6 in Arlington for the first two nights.
4/19/1987 We arose early and drove over to Fort Worth before going north.
At Sherman we caught Union Pacific 2249 East.
At Ray was MKT RS3M 146, nee MKT 1553, built by American Locomotive Company in 1950 at the east end of the yard. We also saw an all-yellow southbound freight with two units lettered Missouri Pacific.
Out of the yard came a northbound train with Southern Pacific 7416 on the point with four MKT SD40-2's and we photographed him from the highway bridge before racing into Oklahoma and catching him coming off the Arkansas River bridge. We then returned to Ray to look around the yard.
Here we found MKT DS4-4-1000M 26, nee MKT 1004, built by Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton in 1946.
From a bluff, MKT NW2 7, 8 and 10 were photographed, then we left town and travelled back through Sherman towards Fort Worth.
At Whitesborom MKT 637 South caught up to us.
A few miles south, the same train.
Further south at Pilot Point, MKT 637 met Union Pacific 3448 North.
Right on Union Pacific's tail was MKT 623 North then after photographing a few more trains, we returned to the Motel 6 for the night.
4/20/1987 Bill and I drove east through Dallas then started following the former Missouri Pacific line towards Big Sandy, where we found Union Pacific 4305 East with 4305, 134 and 4254 all in UP yellow, and followed him east for a few miles. At Big Sandy, we turned north along the Cotton Belt Line to Pittsburgh, Texas and the KCS crossing.
Here we caught Southern Pacific 9363 West then later the Blue Streak Merchandise with Southern Pacific 7627 speeding east. We proceeded to Texarkana and found the Motel 6 there.
We went over to the KCS and found KCS 628 South preparing to leave town.
We jumped ahead of him out of town to Jury, Louisiana, just across the state line, for this picture.
On the way back to town, we caught Missouri Pacific 3520 West at Sulphur Springs, Texas.
Returning to Texarkana, we caught Missouri Pacific 3150 preparing to leave the yard, then called it a night.
4/21/1987 The KCS gave their line-up over the radio at 7:00 AM for their First, Second, Third and Fourth Subdivisions, at 7:30 for the Fifth, Sixth and Seventh Subdivisions. Since we were about to follow the Fifth Subdivision, we now knew what trains would be out and about on the line.
We returned to Jury to catch KCS 633 South then made our way back into Texas to the main highway south.
We found access to the KCS again at Bloomburg and caught KCS 628 North.
Further south in Louisiana, we caught KCS 700 North at Sandra.
Continuing in the same direction, near Vivian we caught the local with KCS 765 in Operation Lifesaver paint then we crossed the bridge over Caddo Lake and at Blanchard on a now very cloudy and windy day, we caught KCS 703 North and chased him back to Caddo Lake, where we waited in a driving rain storm with lightning. I used the bridge to protect myself from the rain while Bill climbed up and just as the train arrived, off to the east, it sounded like another louder freight train and through the rain, I saw a shape of a funnel cloud of a tornado for just a second before the rain obscured the view.
Even with all that going on, I still managed to photograph the train.
Once back into the nice dry car, we drove into Shreveport where we stopped by Deramus Yard and at the engine facility, found KCS F3A's 4050 and 4058.
We were stopped downtown by Southern Pacific B23-7 5112, built by General Electric in 1980.
We proceeded southeast out of town catching up to KCS 789 West near Curtis, Louisiana.
On his rear was KCS caboose 328.
KCS 789 met KCS 751 east on our way back to town. We went to the Motel 6 where Bill dropped me off while he had decided to go east to Gibsland, Louisiana to catch the rail action there. He returned a happy man and by that time, we called it a night.
4/22/1987 This penultimate day of our railfanning adventure.
We stopped by Texas Junction catching KCS 702 coming off the Texas Line.
The KCS again at Caddo Lake.
The two of us drove west to Marshall, Texas where we caught B23-7 4067 in Missouri Pacific blue, then went to Big Sandy, followed the Cotton Belt to Tyler and saw Southern Pacific 7676 East.
At the depot, St. Louis-Southwestern SW1500's 2519 and 2580 rolled by.
On the way out of town, we found the gate crossing protection of the St. Louis-Southwestern/Missouri Pacific, then drove west over to Corsicana before leaving the railroad to reach Hillsboro, where we would spend the night.
When we found the MKT tracks at Itasca, we caught MKT 616 North.
Just before sunset at Grandview, here came Missouir Pacific 3317 South.
He stopped and after dark came Missouri Pacific 3189 North. After that we went to Hillsboro and checked into Motel 6.
4/23/1987 Our last day in Texas found Bill and I driving south to Temple.
We caught MKT 370 at Hewitt with an former Kennecott Copper locomotive in the consist.
In Temple we found Belton Railroad's former MKT NW2 10 sitting in their shed. We then followed the Santa Fe, catching the north local at Crawford, Santa Fe 3007 South at Clifton, various power at Cleburne, as well as a coal train on the north end of town.
Burlington Northern 7099 East in front of huge grain elevator at Saginaw.
Next came MKT 340 West with former Illinois Central and Conrail locomotives.
We followed him out of town and paced ahead of him to Aurora.
With flight time nearing, Bill and I drove back to DFW Airport which utilizes this Air Train to shuttle passengers between terminals. We caught our flight back to Long Beach and what amazed me was leaving at 5:25 PM CDT and arriving at 5:15 PM PDT. I enjoyed my flight and Bill had provided me with a great railfan trip.
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