Once More at Sugar Land. . .and a little luck coming home. . .

Sugar Land: World HQ of Imperial Sugar. . .

Been a while since I posted any train photos, which is really the reason many of my thousands of regular readers visit this blog. . .so let's scratch that itch with a few final shots from Houston:

Wednesday: I just love the industrial backdrop at Sugar Land, a suburb around 20 miles west of Houston. The place is the headquarters of Imperial Sugar, which once operated a large processing plant there; the offices remain, the factory is shut down, with the fate of the impressive structure undecided. So after picking E. up from his "rocket class" at Space Center Houston during spring break Wednesday, we drove out for the afternoon to catch the action. The weather had cleared up, so I hoped for at least a few trains. We weren't disappointed.


First-off: Three big UP AC6000CW's rumble into the siding light.


Next up: Clean UP GE 5309 leads a westbound merchandise train. . .

Hot on his heels, a BNSF trackage-rights train behind ex-BN SD40-2 7002. . .

Thursday: The next day we headed back to Fort Worth. We retraced our steps to Sugar Land, then followed the BNSF Galveston subdivision north from Rosenburg:

GE-O-Rama: Horde of AC6000CW's gather at the rock unloader at Missouri City. In south Texas, the 7500's are as much a staple of hauling this heavy traffic as the GP60s are up in Chico. These things sound great--just like Alco 251's!

I'd rather be lucky department: We knew a northbound empty rock train was behind us as we neared Milano, with five SD40-2/45-2's for power. . but the light was all wrong. Pushing on, we happened upon this southbound rock load behind SD45-2 6510, a sister 45-2, and an SD40-2. They were sure grinding on the 60 car train. . .

That's it for now!