April trains, Wayne the Train

A few photos from what we've seen and done out along the tracks during the month of April...

M practices a balancing act on some surplus rail sections...

UP 6936 leads an officers' special south out of Denton on April 5.


A "Star Wars" themed moniker on a tank car west of Weatherford.


UP 7829 climbs upgrade on the Baird Sub at Preble.

Never too busy for a self-portrait... Whiskey on the UP Baird Subdivision on April 13.


Some aggressive high-speed driving yielded this view of UP 7829 approaching Judd on the UP Baird Sub.



Wayne Hancock at Dan's Silverleaf - April 26

I've seen Wayne"the Train" Hancock more times than I can count, but he never disappoints. Last Saturday night after work, I hurried up to Denton to catch his show at Dan's Silverleaf.

I was glad to see that Wayne had found another steel guitar player. He has been without one since the departure of Eddie Rivers, who is now with Asleep at the Wheel. Wayne announced that the new guy, Tony Locke, has performed with him in the past, but not for several years. This was his first show since joining the band on a full-time basis. At times, he seemed to be a little "out of sync" with the rest of the guys, but still did a good job.

Wayne Hancock & his band at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton TX - April 26

In addition to numerous Hancock originals ("Highway 54", "Tulsa","Kansas City blues"), Wayne and the boys threw down a number of covers such as Hank Thompson's "6-pack to go", Johnny Horton's "Honky tonk man", and Johnny Cash's "Big river." And of course they included a handful of obligatory Hank Williams covers such as "Lost highway", "Your cheatin' heart", and "Lovesick Blues".

It's fun to see the reactions of folks in the crowd who have never been to a Wayne Hancock show before. One guy standing near me was excitedly telling his friends how Wayne sounded "just like he does on the cd" but didn't look anything like what he had imagined. (He was expecting "some old guy with a beard".) And a couple of older women were amazed at the voice they heard coming from the guy on stage with the slicked-down hair, rolled-up jeans and Chuck Taylor high-tops. "He sounds just like Hank Williams!" one of them squealed. Indeed.

Huck Johnson, Wayne Hancock, Tony Locke, Eddie Biebel

Wayne likes to make sure the rest of the band works as hard as he does, and he gave steel player Tony and guitarist Eddie Biebel plenty of opportunities to show their stuff as they cranked out lengthy solos during many of the songs. Wayne just stood off to the side of the stage and grinned as Tony and Eddie dueled back and forth with their solos. The solos during "Kansas City Blues" lasted so long, I forgot what song they were doing! Even bassist Huck Johnson got to pound out a few short solos on his upright bass.

Famous for playing up to (or even past) closing time, Wayne was threatening to leave the stage early... he and the band had a long drive ahead of them the next day for "Bob Wills Day" in Turkey (about 3/4 of the way to Amarillo). But when 2 a.m. rolled around, they were still on stage, giving the fans every last dollar's worth until the sound man turned on the house lights and asked everyone to leave. Fun times!

Check him out if you get a chance...

WSC

np: Townes Van Zandt - "Darcy Farrow"

Wayne the Train in Denton

An evening with the World's Finest Purveyor of Juke Joint Swing

Last Friday after work, I caught another Wayne Hancock show at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton. Wayne put on a great show, as usual, belting out original numbers like "Flatland Boogie", "Big City Good Time Gal", "Highway 54", and covers like Hank Williams' "Long Gone Lonesome Blues", Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues", and of course the immortal "Route 66". (That's "route" -- rhymes with "out" -- not "root".)

Wayne Hancock at Dan's Silverleaf. Denton, TX Jan. 11, 2008.

taking a break to replace a string

Once more, with a flash. Wayne always has plenty of smiles...

Wayne's either on the wagon or he's off; on Friday, he was "on", but there were still plenty of jokes about the kind of cigarettes he planned to smoke during the break between sets.

He and the band played past the bar's 2 AM closing time; twice he begged owner Dan to let him play just one more song, boasting that his shows cost half as much as Junior Brown's but he plays twice as much. "Some of those other guys, they charge twice as much and play twice as less!" Or something like that. I had a good time, even though all my friends who said they were gonna go bailed on me so I ended up hanging around there by myself. Go see him sometime; he puts on a hell of a show.

WSC

np: Speedtrucker - "Truck Drivin' Man (Give it all I can)"

steam train, Wayne the train

UP 844 comes to Texas - for a few hours

UP 844 southbound south of Stoneburg, TX on Sept 14

Last Friday, one of Union Pacific's steam engines made a brief appearance in north Texas. UP has been running a special train, powered by UP steam locomotive # 844, to help commemorate the Centennial of Oklahoma's statehood. It began in Wichita, KS last week and ran south to a different Oklahoma town (Enid, El Reno, Waurika) each day. On Friday, the train crossed the Red River into Texas en route to Chico, where the railroad planned to turn it on a wye (a triangular arrangement of tracks which allows a train to change direction by making essentially a "3 point turn") and send it back north.

On Friday morning, Stephen and I (with L in tow -- a minor illness had kept her home from school for the day) headed north through Chico and Bowie and intercepted the train south of Stoneburg. We planned to follow the train back to Chico for more photos, and end our chase when it was time for me to come home and get ready for work. Few things on the railroad ever work out exactly as planned, however, and Friday was no exception.

A grain train was running ahead of the steam engine and experienced a train separation when a knuckle broke on the hill south of Bowie. (A knuckle is the part of the coupler that opens and closes to connect the cars.) After putting the train back together, the crew wasn't sure they'd be able to pull up the hill from where they were without either stalling or breaking the train again. The crew on the steam engine offered to shove them up the hill from behind, but the dispatcher had to "talk to Omaha" (UP management) and it was decided instead to have the grain train double their train (take half the cars, then return for the second half) to Chico. This process would take a minimum of two to three hours. Our second shot of the steam engine, rolling to a stop at a crossing south of Bowie, ended up being our last.

waiting for something to happen - fans look on as UP 844 and the Oklahoma Centennial train stop south of Bowie behind a disabled grain train

Plenty of other fans were out, but it was mostly just "local yokels" at the crossings where we stopped. At the crossing south of Bowie, my friends Joe and Blair caught up with us, and entertained our small group with various theories of what was probably happening "behind the scenes" up in Omaha, and how long it might take to get things moving again. We finally decided to head back home -- it was obvious that the train wasn't going anywhere.

Blair and Joe cool their heels after chasing 844 south from Waurika

Fun times? Well, we caught a steam engine, it was running, and it was in Texas. We came home with one decent shot, which is what I told myself going into this that I would be happy with if that was all I got. I guess we have next summer to look forward to, with the NRHS (National Railway Historical Society) convention coming to Ft Worth... maybe we'll get to see some big steam down here again then.

Wayne Hancock in Denton - Friday, Sept 14

Friday night after work, I met some friends at Dan's Silverleaf in Denton for a Wayne Hancock show. Joe and Stephen eventually made it up there; they had been busy shooting pictures out west of Ft. Worth.

Wayne Hancock and his band at Dan's in Denton - Friday, Sept 14

This time around, steel player Eddie Rivers wasn't with the band. He's only been there about half of the times I've seen Wayne. Instead, they had fiddle player Katy Cox on stage, sharing solos with guitarist Eddie Biebel. It was the first time I had seen her with the band. She really tore it up! Not many of Wayne's studio songs include fiddle, but she came up with some nice solos for most of the songs. Highlights included hearing them play a few Hank Williams originals ("Lovesick Blues", "Move it on over", "Jambalaya"), a Hank III song, Johnny Cash's "Big River" (with guitarist Eddie on vocals) and and of course some of Wayne's own material like "Tulsa", "Walkin' the dog", and Johnny Law". They wrapped up the show right at 2 am. When I saw them back in February they played for about 20 minutes past closing time and the bar staff pretty much had to kick them off stage!

Stephen and Joe - front porch Whataburgers at 3:30 am.

We wrapped up our evening (now three hours into Saturday morning) with Joe and Stephen eating Whataburgers on our front porch. They would both be catching their flights home later in the day, so that was the last time I'd see them during their visit.

WSC

np: ESPN SportsCenter
nr: Ayn Rand - the Fountainhead

Red dirt day trip

A week ago Sunday (April 29), M joined me for a daylong trip to Black Bear, Oklahoma. Located about an hour north of Oklahoma City, Black Bear features an interlocking where the BNSF Red Rock Subdivision (former Santa Fe from Gainesville TX to Arkansas City KS) crosses the BNSF Avard Sub (my current dispatching district, the former Frisco from Tulsa to Enid to Avard). It's a neat place to spend a couple hours or a whole day, and we saw plenty of trains. It was a lot of ground to cover in a day, though... we drove over 600 miles! Maybe next time, we'll find a motel room and drive back the next morning.

Eastbound H BARTUL (Barstow, California to Tulsa OK) on the Avard Sub approaches the Black Bear diamond. April 29, 2007

M's photos of the BARTUL were a little bit more "interpretive".

BNSF 914 northbound on the Red Rock Sub at Black Bear.


Grain hoppers rattle across the diamond on the Red Rock Sub. Track in foreground is the connecting track from the Red Rock Sub to the Avard Sub.


A portrait of backwoods Oklahoma - the Avard Subdivision southwest of Black Bear

the same crossing - with a train

We found aptly-named "Railroad Avenue" in nearby Morrison.


Also on hand at Morrison was this backhoe in a hopper, part of a work train that was unloading ties on the Avard Sub during late April and early May.

M enjoyed a visit with the crew of this eastbound before they headed for Tulsa.

Live music report

Well, I missed Ray Wylie Hubbard at Love & War in Texas (Plano) this past Sunday. He played at the "Shiner Sunday" event, but I was busy taking the kids to a birthday party for one of the neighbor's kids, so I wasn't able to go. Too bad -- I really enjoyed Ray Wylie's show when we caught him in Waxahachie a couple years ago. Hopefully I'll have another chance to see him sometime soon.

Wayne Hancock will be playing at Dan's in Denton on Friday, but I'll probably have to skip out on that as well... I'm signed up to ride in the North Texas Classic (bike ride) at Saginaw on Saturday morning. Eleven Hundred Springs will be at Dan's on Saturday, though... if I'm not too tired from riding, maybe I'll go check that out. I haven't seen them "long-hair tattoo hippie freaks" in quite a while...

See ya next time...

I'm pretty much all caught up on my backlog of material. It might be a week or two before I post again. Until next time... take care of yourselves -- and each other.

WSC

np: Mr. T Experience "Alternative is here to stay" (single)