Birthday trains...

Do you ever treat yourself to something special on your birthday? Going back to my 18th birthday in 1990, when I spent a day along the Santa Fe near Sweetwater, Texas, I have spent at least a small part of several subsequent birthdays watching and photographing trains.

I was trackside in Saginaw, TX on January 7, 2003, and caught a southbound BNSF yard transfer heading through the connection from the Fort Worth Subdivision to the Wichita Falls Sub. Powered by four 4-axle EMD locomotives, the train was hauling cars from BNSF's Alliance Yard to the former BN North Yard in Fort Worth. The scene wasn't necessarily anything special, but the sun was out, the light was nice, and the opportunity to juxtapose yellow-and-green locomotives with the yellow-and-green switch indicator was just too much to pass up.