Southwest Trip - 5

Hi, Day 5 was given over to the UP's Sunset Route east of Tucson.  We began with a return to Cienega Creek.  We shot a number of westbound trains on the bridge and two eastbound trains, one of which is shown below.  I have omitted the rest of the photos as we came back one more time, on day 6, and got similar trains in sun.  This day started out cloudy and remained so, however, with no rain.  It was the worst day of the trip so we have no complaints as to weather.

From Cienega Creek we moved east to Mescal, AZ where the tracks come back together.  A westbound manifest was sitting at the grade crossing.  After shooting a number of angles, two of which appear below, we set up by some Type G (Tri Light) signals.

After a few minutes the train resumed its westward journey.  We never did find out why it was waiting at Mescal.

The train had a pair of DPUs.

After lunch in Benson, AZ we headed for the east end of town where we photographed an eastbound auto rack train, and

a ballast train.

Continuing east, the auto rack train caught up to us at San Simon, AZ.

As there is a fairly good grade from San Simon to Steins, NM we were able to hop on I-10 and get ahead of the train.  This is a great location in sunlight but loses a lot when it is cloudy.

We photographed the ballast train again and a coal train at Wilcox, AZ, however, as I do not particularly like the photos they are not included.  I hope you enjoyed the ones I did include.