New Year’s Eve with the FEC and TriRail

We have a ritual when we’re down here at my parent’s place in Florida – we make a morning trip to Einstein Bagels in Boca Raton, FL.  This fine New Year’s Eve morning, we left the kids with my parents and went out in search of trains after the bagel stop.  Well, I did the train search party – Jill was happy listening to the radio while I was doing my thing.

So this morning before leaving for the bagel shop on this last day of 2009, I checked ATCS Monitor to see if there were any FEC trains heading our way.  I saw that there was one north of West Palm Beach heading south.  OK, we’d have time to get our bagels and get to the curve in Boca for a shot of the southbound.

With bagels in hand, we headed south on Dixie Highway a bit to a bank parking lot near the curve.  The good thing about this spot is I can see the intermediate signal near the Boca/Deerfield Beach line.  After a few minutes of sitting, we heard the dispatcher acknowledge FEC train 123 hitting the Hypoluxo detector.  OK, here he comes!

A few minutes later the signal to the south of us lit up, which meant the train was in the block.  So I got my gear together, and headed across the street to get into position.

Moments later I got a really long shot of 123 coming into view, as a bicyclist was crossing the tracks

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Then 123 crossed over Camino Gardens Blvd

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And they came into range, so i got a few shots of them passing by me

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Then a couple going away shots

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And one of the empty wells on the tail end of 123 streaking past an old No Trespassing sign

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Finally a shot of the marker pulling through the curve, heading south

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With nothing else in the picture, I figured that was it for FEC action.  A look at the clock, and I figured we had a bit of time to hopefully catch some TriRail runs.  So we headed over to the Boca Raton station a bit further north of us.

After finding a parking spot, I grabbed my gear and headed to the station.

Once I got there, I checked the signals to the south – the southbound tracks were showing a green.  Cool, I’d at least get one train.  Now to figure out where I was going to shoot from.

I checked out the shot from the pedestrian overpass – wasn’t exactly impressed with it considering the variable light from the passing clouds.  But I did notice something that wasn’t there a couple years ago – a path over the canal into a park.  So I figured I had enough time to check it out.

Walking over the bridge, I was greeted with a nice view of the tracks crossing over a calm canal.  That was the shot.

A moment later, I saw the crossing gates at Yamato Rd. drop – the southbound was here.  Not long after that, the southbound crossed the El Rio Canal

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But as the train stopped in the station, I noticed something else – a northbound making a station stop.  Back to the bridge I went…

After dropping off & picking up passengers, the northbound headed out, so I got a shot of the cab control car crossing the canal

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The the power

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And another shot of them sneaking behind the foliage

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With that in the bag, I noticed the southbound was still in the station.  So I sprinted up the stairs to the pedestrian overpass, and got into position as they started to pull out of the station.

After catching my breath (as those of you who know me, I’m not exactly in shape…well, unless you consider round as a shape), I got a couple shots of the southbound heading for the signal.

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With those in the bag, we had to get back to the house, so I packed the gear away and we drove back to Deerfield Beach.  Not a bad way to end 2009 – railfanning in shorts…

Thanks for looking!
Tom