Gee,
It looks like it was only about 97 or 98 degrees out there...
Did you go east on Liberity drive and look at the locomotive storage line?
If not, just behind the hump lead in the first photo are 30 or so locomotives in storage.
You can walk up the Wayside drive overpass and shoot photos of the hump from there.
Had you gone south on Wayside, crossed under IH10 and gone another mile, you would have ended up at the PTRA North Yard....
23 17 46 11
I was sort of feeling my way around, but I did find that dead line and I did walk up Wayside Drive. I also found North Yard (but with the help of another railfan who showed me around my last few hours before I got on a plane home).
Visting other towns is a funny thing... as after you get home, you really figure out all sorts of stuff you should have seen. Even now, as I'm looking through my shots, I'm seeing things in the background or to the sides that I can't believe I didn't notice when I was there (like I took a shot of Settegast yard and to the side of the shot I got half the sign that said Settegast Yard... had I been home, or had maybe two more minutes to think about it, I would have framed that shot right and taken it with the sign... making for a much, much better shot, but when you're away from home and don't know where you are, you are all confused and just trying to get what you can).
Yeah, I have done the same thing myself...what days/dates where you here?
June 4 to 8, but it wasn't all railfanning. Was there for a family event, which took up most of my time.
Was just wondering..I was working the south end by the tower at North Yard the 4th and 5th till around 2pm....North end on the 8th.
Email next time your headed this way, I will give you the dime tour if the time works out.
Will do, for sure.
I was poking around the north end of North Yard on the the 5th, maybe about two hours later than that (staying on public property), but didn't know that was where I was. It was up by the small used car lots, where the MPI rebuilds are all parked right along the road.
Had tickets to the Astros game and hurried off to get there in time. Wound up getting there two hours early (for all the horror stories about Houston traffic, it was not as bad as Los Angeles, at least not the days that I was there, I may have just lucked out). No problem though... it's such a beautiful ball park, I just walked around exploring.
If you were up near the car lots, then that was UPs Basin yard...if you saw the small white building between two sets of track, that is the Basin Yard office...the tracks beyond or on the other side of that are PTRA, the street side is Basin Yard.
From North yard to Minute Maid Park is quick and easy, right down IH10 and 59 to the park, from just about anywhere else it is a pain...Did you get to look in at Union Station, behind home base?
Saw the yard office there and the sign for North Yard, which I think is what threw me off.
Yes... I did get to tour take a good look at Union Station. It's great that they restored it like that. It's really nicely done.
I also got a good look at that SP Decapod out front.
Only two complaints I have are --
1) I wish the fence around the Decapod was a little further out, so you could get a decent shot of it.
2) This is a huge one, but it would have been really cool if they had figure out a way to keep a couple tracks at Union Station and put the Sunset Limited into the station (yeah, I know, huge dreaming, and it doesn't make sense, for a stub end station, and it's the wrong railroad, yada, yada, and it's pointless anyway... but it would have been cool).
Erie Lackawanna [snip; emphasis added - PDN] 2) This is a huge one, but it would have been really cool if they had figure out a way to keep a couple tracks at Union Station and put the Sunset Limited into the station (yeah, I know, huge dreaming, and it doesn't make sense, for a stub end station, and it's the wrong railroad, yada, yada, and it's pointless anyway... but it would have been cool).
But that's how Amtrak does it at the Tampa, Florida stub-end station
(or at least did, the last time I was there a few years ago)
- Paul North.
The SP steam at MinuteMaid was on public display at Herman Park for 40 somethinig years or more...no fence, just sitting on a piece of old track out in the open ...I played on and in it all the time as a kid...they did a little cosmetic restoration when they moved it.
I too wish they had left a track there, but the HB&T trackage to Union Station was all ripped up and the land developed, so no way to get a real train there anyway.
The PTRA offices were there a Union when I hired out, the station tracks were used for car storage....when you got into trouble, or had to go see someone from the office on business, you were "going downtown"!
Hey, I am taking the following week off to see the tower 87 and tower 55. What you recommend? How many days? Do you know any spots?
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.