THURSDAY, JANUARY 22, 2004

For other days, see: http://www.trainweather.com/3985.html

The UP Challenger, No. 3985, ran from St Louis to Bernie, Missouri today. While it was supposed to be at Bernie at 3 p.m., it arrived about 6 p.m. due to trackwork and a lot of trains on the division. At one point, it was held on a siding at Avert, Missouir, about 8 miles north of Dexter for two hours, but it couldn't be helped. As far as I know, nothing was wrong with the 3985 itself. Many thanks to Ed Mertes of St Louis who called me from the train.

I was waiting for it at Dexter, Missouri for over 3 hours, as was many others. There were hundreds lined up to see it coming through Dexter at 540 p.m., but it was mostly dark by then.

I made a sound digital movie of it coming through Dexter since I couldn't take an unblurry photo of it anyway. However, I had the movie setting on my Sony camera set to VGA (640) mode, so the file is 33 mb in size. Except for viewing on my own computer, that's way to large to send over the internet unless you have a broadband connection. Even then, 33mb is quite a lot. So I won't put that on here at this time. Basically you could see the lights and hear the great steam whistle of the 3985, but not much else.

Here are some time-exposure photos I took at Bernie, MO after the train arrived. There were hundreds here too, and driving the 8 miles south from Dexter to Bernie took 30 minutes or so as traffic was crawling at 15 mph.




This was late afternoon on January 22 at Dexter, MO. You cansee the cars across the track and there were just as many on the other side of the tracks by the time the train arrived.


The train just passed my location at 541 p.m. heading for Bernie.


Here are some of the cars lined up in Bernie at 625 p.m. Police had some roads closed.


The train in Bernie, taken with a 10 second exposure.


Part of the crown at the engine with the fuel truck.


The Challenger at night in Bernie, Missouri.


From the front.


Greasing the rods.




Fueling.