16-06-17a PHOTOS: Plan Brazos

In late May and June, 2016, Texas was subjected to a record setting amount of rainfall that caused the Brazos river, just west of Houston, to rise to a level of 53'. While the flooding snarled rail traffic in the area for the typical reasons like downed trees and washouts, at the former Southern Pacific Glidden Sub bridge over the Brazos River, just east of the railroad town of Rosenburg, a far more serious defect developed about 10 days prior to my. The support pier between the easternmost truss and the approach trestle was undermined by water scour and dropped down about 4 feet, rendering the bridge impassible.

Now at first I was worried that the bridge's extended outage would result in a trip ruining bustitution. However, I should have had more faith in Amtrak because when Plan A isn't available, it's time for Plan B! That's right, instead of a ruined trip I was treated to that that wonderful Amtrak event, a rare mileage detour. Instead of rolling into Houston on the Glidden Sub as I had the year before, my train would be rerouted at the famous Tower 17 south on the BNSF Galveston Sub to the town of Alvin, before then heading north on the BNSF Mykawa Sub to T&NO Jct where the line would change into the UP Houston West Best Sub that would then deliver us to Tower 26 where we would then make a backup move into the Houston Amtrak station.

You can find all the photos from this incredibly rare train movement here. Just goes to show that riding Amtrak can really turn delays into lemonade juicy railfan stories.

Movements from the eastbound Glidden Sub to the southbound Galveston Sub are not typically needed so the only direct connection available at TOWER 17 interlocking is west to north. This, and having to travel over BNSF, prompted Union Pacific to detour its freight off the Sunset Route at Flatonia, TX. On the other hand, long backup movements are just a regular part of doing business on LD Amtrak trains. Here we see a Diverging Clear signal displayed westbound at TOWER 17 for a route onto the northbound BNSF Galveston Sub.

TOWER 17 was the site of Texas's last active classic interlocking tower. The tower was closed about 10 years ago, but it and its Taylor Model 2 interlocking machine were preserved in a local railfan park.

Passing the diamond in the other direction. The multiple relay huts is due to the joint ownership and maintenance of the interlocking and its diamond crossing.

These KCS ES44AC's #4680 and #4859 distracted me sufficiently so that I missed out on more photos of TOWER 17. However, in its stead I managed to capture the local BNSF crew base.

KCS SD70ACe #4027 was providing tail end power as the unit train of covered hoppers waited in the siding for us to pass by.

Despite the 1980's vintage ATSF signaling being in relatively good knick, a replacement programme was under way because I guess anything with moving parts is bad.

Sometimes it seems that all of Texas is a highway construction zone. Here some sort of ramp or frontage road is bring added to Interstate 69.

This southbound unit grain train had passed over the diamond at TOWER 17 ahead of us, but we had the last laugh as we passed it on the Manvel siding (even limited to the freight train speed of 50mph). Unlike the popular belief, freight dispatchers do a pretty good job of routing Amtrak trains through freight traffic. Engines are BNSF ES44C4 #6803 and SD70ACe #8598.

What I assume is some sort of old feed mill in Alvin.

Because of Houston's notoriously bad air quality, genset style switchers are typically assigned here by the big Class 1 railroads. Here we see a pair of National Railway Equipment 3GS21B-DE's, #1245 and #1287, shifting cars near Alvin.

16-06-17 VIDEOS: Sunset Detour

Although I did have my GoPro with me on my 2015 Cross Country trip, this would be the first year where I would get to make proper use of it. Still, I didn't have unlimited battery or memory card capacity so I had to make some careful choices about what I would film from the rear of the train using my trusty suction cup mount. First of all, most of the trip is pretty dull consisting of single track railroad through the middle of nowhere or annoyingly slow speed running through urban areas. Second, there was no way in hell that I would fail to film the rare mileage detour portion of the trip. With these two constraints I decided to capture the run in and out of El Paso to the rare mileage as it offered an exciting route at somewhat reasonable speeds with no pesky backing up.

This first video shows the Sunset Limited's descent down the escarpment west of El Paso, into the Big River valley. There is a brief, edited stop at LIZARD interlocking where we wait for the westbound Amtrak Train 1 to pass, before we cross over and continue along the Mexican Border before crossing the Big River on an impressive viaduct. The video ends with our train pulling into the El Past Union Station.



The second video shows Amtrak Train 2, the Sunset Limited, as it departs El Past Union Station, past the now demolished Tower 96, through the downtown grade separation trench and then out into the old El Paso yard. The train passes by a wye junction and the site of the now demolished Tower 47 before passing the Union Pacific engine terminal and continuing to the Alfalfa merchandise freight yard.



Jumping ahead a day, the third video shows the first part of the detour on the BNSF Galveston Sub between the towns of Rosenberg, TX and Alvin, TX. This is normally a freight only line with a maximum speed of 50mph. The line is also in the process of being re-signaled with the 1980's vintage ATSF searchlights being replaced well before their time.



After squealing around the 10mph wye track at Alvin, my Train #2 enters the BNSF Mykawa Sub and proceeds from Alvin to T&NO Jct. Again the speed is 50mph, but upon approaching T&NO Jct, we begin to hit some congestion and speed restrictions and along with this route being generally bland and boring I cut out a few additional segments near the end.

Well that's it for this video post. Next week we continue on the cross country trip, heading from Houston to Beaumont, TX.