As promised, here are the notes from my Saturday chase of the BNSF 740. I'm sorry if you find them long and boring. The day began with a phone call from SOC, informing me that the Z-KCMPTL9-13 (that's #9 to you and me) was by Elk Creek, NE (some 60 miles SE of here) at 07:08, with the 740 leading the 739 and two pieces of junk. TSS suggested the train would be into Lincoln at 08:17 and out at 11:07, with the crew on duty at 09:03.
Since the track heads north and west into Lincoln from KC, there really were no decent shots of the train on the inbound leg. Still, I wanted to see the train and make sure the info was correct, so I headed south, and heard him calling the flagman at Firth about 07:55. Hence, I set up on a hill at East Saltillo and waited for him to come. The light was pretty crappy, since the humidity was about one billion percent as usual, but color print film is more forgiving of crummy light than slide film, so I figured it would be worth a shot or two. As he arrived, I about fell out of the truck when I saw the 740. I was over a mile away from the track, but there was no mistaking the 740 - it's practically glow-in-the-dark. The low angle sun made the yellow appear almost gold. Like most new sights, it was a little shocking at first, but I knew I wanted to see it up closer. What really shocked me was the lack of lettering on the 739. Looks like they rushed things just a little too much. Saltillo is only about 10 Santa Fe track minutes from the yard, and he was by me at about 08:15. So, in typical BN fashion, he arrived in Lincoln yard about 09:30, having been held out to meet #8, among other things. Looking at the 740 head-on from a distance, you get the impression you are seeing a Santa Fe super fleet unit with colorblind eyes. I decided I should shoot some crummy backlit roster shots of the 740 as he approached the yard, knowing full well the right side of the loco would be on the dark side for the rest of the day. Even when he got into the yard, he had to wait for a coal train to depart before he could spot his power. So instead of stopping at 08:30, he finally stopped closer to 10:00. In the mean time, I decided to go to work to check my voicemails, e-mails, and various stuff on the web. The satellite looked promising, so I decided I needed to make the chase. My hope was that a Z train could make the Lincoln to Alliance run in about 8 hours or so, which would put this train in the best scenery of the Sandhills during the best light of the day. Yea right, dream on... I headed back to the yard about 11:00 to see if #9 was getting anywhere close to departing. Of course, being a football Saturday, I had to dodge hoards of out-of-town morons dressed up in their 'I'm a damned idiot' outfits, just to get across town. Upon arriving at the west end of the yard, I discovered that #9 had a bad order to set out. Wonderful. As he set out his bad order, I blasted a few detail shots of the engines, to get those views that are needed for modeling purposes. It was pretty tough to get a shot of the little BNSF logo on the ass-end of the 740, but you can sort of see it on the 3/4 left rear roster view. I'm real persnickety about lighting, so I only shot color print film during the morning. The train finally got out of the yard about 11:45. Gee, hot Z train, with an effective screw around time of 3:15 in Lincoln. Yea, that's doing pretty good for here. I grabbed another across-the-field shot of the train just west of Emerald. Since there are no shots of a westbound at mid-day between Lincoln and Ravenna, I hopped on the Interstate and headed to Grand Island, a little over a hour west of here (at 80 mph). The crew of the Z train was jabbering to a coal load that his 2nd unit was SO new they forgot to letter it. After grabbing some choke and puke at Wendy's in GI, I headed towards Ravenna. My thinking was that I would get there a little before 13:45, and the train would get there much later. As I arrived in Ravenna, it was the usual clusterf... um, I mean quagmire, of coal trains, so I decided to hang out and wait for the Z train. Then it occurs to me to see if there is any kind of half-assed shot just east of town. So, I drove to Nantasket, which is about 5 east of Ravenna, and settled upon a boring grade crossing wedgie, made slightly better by my ladder + toolbox + truck. To my complete surprise, #9 was closing in as I got there. Much to the credit of the Ravenna Line DS, he made it from Lincoln to Ravenna (about 130 miles) in only 2:45, which is damned fast for BN. After shooting him (again on color print) at Nantasket, I raced back to Ravenna, and set up on the crosswalk to grab an inbound shot. The trick here was to be lucky enough to have all the damned coal trains out of the way, have the Z train get close enough to the crosswalk to be shootable, and to have the nose door remain closed until the train stopped -- utter impossibilities. Yet to my sheer amazement, it happened that way. Technically, according to Grumpy's rules of high sun, it was still not yet acceptable lighting for slides, so I shot prints instead. Of course, in retrospect, I should have dumped a whole roll of slides on this shot, as it wasn't really that bad, and I DO wish I had slides of it. Ravenna was on and off, and #9 blasted off within 5 minutes of arriving. By now, I knew I needed to start heading west to find some decent shots. The scenery west of Ravenna is pretty lame for a good long ways, so I kept driving, looking for an interesting shot. As I went west, I passed dozens of coal trains. BN had 57 loads between Lincoln and Alliance on Saturday afternoon, and they were all over the damned place. Most of them were dead, with crossings cut and such, making it nearly impossible to find a shot. Although most of this subdivision is now double track, it has to be operated as single track, because dead trains occupy one track, and the other is used to run trains. Consequently, our Z train went nowhere real fast. I got to Mason, thinking #9 would run around the 4 or so empties in front of him, but it didn't take too long to figure out this just wasn't going to happen. So I decided it was time to head back east and look for the 740. I found him sitting at Hazard, only 10 miles west of Ravenna. He sat here for about an hour and a half, what being the hottest train on the system and all. But, I wasn't about to let this opportunity go to waste. The light was ok, a little broadside, but still within reason for a 3/4 roster shot, so I dumped a whole roll of slides on rosters, then proceeded to grab every angle of detail shot on color print film. Thankfully, the AC was working and the crew kept the nose door shut. After finishing off my roster and detail shots, I decided to head west and shoot some worthless coal trains. To my surprise, as I got back to Mason, the empties were starting to move. I wedgified a few of the empties, then #9 showed up. After blasting him, the chase was on. The good news was, there were trains in front of him, so he didn't make very good time. This of course, was also bad news, as it was clear he would not make Alliance by dark. I managed to grab him about 3 or 4 places before he got to Broken Bow (about 50 miles west of Ravenna). Most of these shots are fairly lame, as was the scenery, but hey, I wasn't complaining. Even though the consist was a dog's breakfast, the 740 was VERY shiny, and the more I saw of it, the more I liked it. In some areas, the train passed large clumps of dark green trees, and man does that 740 ever stand out against a green background. Once #9 got to Broken Bow, he finally ran around the last empty, and then started to haul ass. He had no trouble making his 60 (good thing this ain't the Santa Fe or it would have been 70), and this made it quite a sporting chase. As I had no copilot, I had to get well ahead of him in order to get set up for a shot. Then, as I shot him, he would pull ahead as I threw everything back in the truck and sped after him. Highway 2 out west is about the best possible place to chase trains. The road is right next to the tracks, there is very little traffic, and the probability of a cop is damned near zero. Still, even at 75 to 80, I was only able to shoot him about every 20 to 30 miles. My big old F150 just won't go 100, and I hate driving anyway. I think I nailed him about 4 or 5 times west of Broken Bow before I finally gave up about 18:45 at Norway (MP 250). Although there was still about 45 minutes of sun left, it was getting cloudy and really hazy. The light had gone to hell, and he was just approaching the good scenery west of Mullen. Now I had a four hour drive ahead of me to get back home, all into the oncoming onslaught of drunks returning home from the damned football game. By some miracle, I did not get killed, and arrived home about 23:00. It had been 15 hours, and 600 miles, which is an average of 40 mph, though I was probably stationary for at least 4 of those hours. I took my roll of prints to Wally World on Sunday for the cheapest 1 hour in town, and spent the afternoon getting that stuff ready for my web page. It sure takes a hell of a lot of work in Photoshop to make color negative scans look worth a damn. I'm still not totally happy with the appearance of the pics, but hey, at least I got them up there in a timely manner. Like I've said, these photos really do NOT do the units justice. The yellow stands out from the orange surprisingly well. Even when I convert the shots to B&W, there is no real problem reading the lettering. Besides, there's almost nothing that can't be done in Photoshop if a guy is willing to spend the time and effort. Oddly enough, I didn't see one other railfan the whole time I followed this train. I even tipped off all the local armchair types, but not one turned up. I was really happy to have had the chance to shoot such a unique locomotive, especially while it was clean. If you have a chance to see this locomotive in person, you really should do so, as it looks stunning in person. I probably should have chased it all the way to Spokane, as I will no doubt never see it again, and even if I do, it will be filthy within a month or so. I can't imagine that BNSF will actually start painting anything this way, as that would be just too good to be true. If I saw a set of SD70MACs painted like the 740, I would probably pee my pants in excitement. As noted on my web page, as far as I'm concerned, the 740 is the most colorful and spectacular looking locomotive I've ever seen. If it comes back this way, you can damned well bet I'll be out there. Finally, I am very grateful for the info provided by Craig Douglas, GTS Dan, and Frisco Joe, which was invaluable in being able to catch this train. Thanks guys, I won't soon forget it! Jim Gilley [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.eesoft.com/rr --> SPORRS: Serious Photographers of Railroad Related Subjects X-Mozilla-Status: 0001 Content-Length: 1641
