Railfanning in the Southwest

by Dave Freshwater 

Helium in Amarillo 

On Monday when we headed out to the DOE Pantex to work, we passed a helium car on a seemingly abandoned spur near the airport. There has been an N Scale model of this car for years; now we have photographs of a current prototype.

Amarillo’s airport was an Air Force base for a period of time and it remains popular with crews practicing landings. I’ve been surprised by a B-1B on a previous trip. This trip, a C-5B was practicing touch and gos. That allowed a ture “intermodal” photo, with the C-5 over a train.

Amarillo is a division point, and I suspected that crews were changed and engines refueled in the yard. But, on the line between Amarillo and Houston, there is a refuel pad east of the city, as well. Trains will pull in and tie up. It appears that the crew changes during refueling and then the train departs. There is a city street running along the rail lines and the pad, but it is hard to get good photographs of engines on the pad. It is positioned on a high spot. The tracks surrounding the fuel pad are on fill above the level of the road.