Last week, I made a trip to the panhandle region of Texas, to present a show at the Friends of the Burlington Northern Railroad annual convention in Amarillo. Northern Texas in June can be hot and thunderstormy, but it was fun and the BNSF Transcon was busy like usual. Here, an eastbound train passes the classy former Santa Fe depot in Amarillo.
Tags: BNSF GE C4 depot station Amarillo former Santa Fe Texas train railroad TX ES44C4
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The town of Panhandle uses the former Santa Fe depot in town for city functions, and railroad MofW. Panhandle, Texas is east of Amarillo on the BNSF main line in, you guessed it, the panhandle!
Tags: Santa Fe depot station Panhandle Texas railroad TX detail
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Scenery around Amarillo is, shall we say, lacking, to put it one way. This photo actually has a tree! The real interest for us would be all of the trains flying through town on the Transcon. An eastbound stack train cruises by east of Amarillo, Texas, at 70 mph., with ES44C4 No. 6643 leading. The BNSF sure has a lot of these C4s now.
Tags: BNSF GE stack double stack intermodal Amarillo Texas train railroad TX
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Westbound BNSF ES44DC No. 7281 flies along Route 60 east of Amarillo, Texas, at 70 mph.
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Some of the tours we had during the Friends of the Burlington Northern Railroad convention were to the Amarillo Railroad Museum, Progress Rail and the BNSF yards. At the railroad museum, a Bureau of Mines MHAX car used to haul helium is on display. They had a capacity of 100 tons, or about 280,000 cubic feet, and carried helium in pressurized cylinders. You wouldn’t think helium would be that heavy! In 1964, it was estimated that 95% of the world’s recoverable helium was produced in a 250-mile radius of Amarillo, Texas. The market and shipping methods for helium has changed over the years and most of these MHAX cars are now scrapped.
Tags: freight car Amarillo Railroad Museum helium car MHAX Bureau of Mines Amarillo Texas train railroad TX
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