I had planned to go out of the house yesterday, to take some train photos. No danger of picking up the virus doing that, in the Texas Panhandle! My objective was to locate on U S Highway 60 west of Miami, TX, and shoot trains passing through the cedar brakes, which right now are green, but will soon get that golden west look. That's about 85 miles east of where I live. Mrs. Number 90 said she wanted to go too, and that changed things, as there are no bathrooms within a close distance of my chosen location. so we went west, toward Clovis. I enjoyed the day out with my wife. Photographically, though, I just could not get my mojo working, and ended up with a few very conventional shots and one "grab" of an unusual event.
The first stop was Canyon, and it was not long before 7417 East showed up, leaning into the 60 MPH curve.
At Cattle Town, a feedlot west of Hereford, this little Buda-engined Whitcomb switcher has been sitting in the same location since at least 2004. As you can see, rust is not a big problem out on the arid south plains. I guess the feedlot people are fond of it, as they mow next to it.
Onward we went, to Bovina. I checked the eastward signal, which was red over green, and didn't have any time to find a prime location. I heard a distant whistle and sprinted through fresh asphalt to get this shot of 5534 East on grain empties for loading at Friona.
I noticed from the signal that the DS had another eastbound train lined up to run around the grain empties. I made a mad dash down a dirt road, heading for the signal bridge, but this guy was running fast, and I only got a going-away grab shot of his 8 units. Four were on line, and four were idling. There is one EMD unit in there. All the other locomotives I shot all day were GE's.
Heading homeward (eastward) on Highway 60, which conveniently parallels the Hereford Subdivision between Clovis and Canyon, I found a westbound train heading into the CTC siding at Black. That meant that he was being put away for a while, or that the DS was going to run another train around him. I could see a really distant headlight, so it was obviously a faster train getting around him. I'm posting a wide photo here so you can see what the terrain is like -- great for seeing what's coming. 
The flip side of all this wide-open ranch land is that you really have to get your head into photography in order to get interesting photos, and this just was not my day for that.
After the fast train ran, the siding signal turned yellow, and the 6224, a "two jack hotshot" pulled out of the siding and headed for Clovis. The weather was sunny, 82 degrees, only a very slight breeze, and I made all these photos in a tee shirt. Last night, a cold front moved in and we woke today, to a temperature of 27 degrees with a 15 degree wind chill and a pretty stiff breeze. So, I guess I chose the right day to go out on the railroad! I can stay inside and scrape the Friona asphalt out of the tread of my boots.
