Remarks: Six Alco C420's start a long hard pull with a very long northbound Fort Smith Turn leaving Van Buren, Arkansas. The train had 70 cars of which 9 cars of DODX Military equipment on the rear is the other attraction besides the all Alco lashup!
If you look at the 4th unit in the consist, A&MR #58 has a visible blue flame-exhaust from before the lead unit gets to the crossing until after #58 crosses.
Wonder if the Arkansas River drawbridge was lowering? That, too, slows these trains down around here (obviously ">) along with the UP crossing by the chicken plant there by the river park. That's wild to catch (Fort Chaffee bound?) DOD loads. Thank you for posting.
This was the northbound train after arriving in town to drop off the southbound. The southbound had a total of 46 cars and it only took 15 minutes to get across the diamond and drop the train for the Fort Smith Local guys. The local crew gets in about 30 minutes before the Southbound and will keep the River bridge down until the train arrives, then they will leave it down while they switch the southbound and then the northbound will cross and wait for a signal at the diamond and then leave, but if they are longer than 40 cars North they will stop the last car at the bridge so the local crew can put on the EOT for the northbound. Those military loads came down 2 weeks before this video was shot, and these were heading back north.
They do not get full trains from the UP anymore. They do however get full loaded grain trains from the BNSF and they go to a new Tyson mill at Butterfield, Missouri. And occasionally 60 - 70 loaded cars come south to Springdale. Also here lately there has been 20 - 25 KCS / AOK / BNSF / TILX / DME grain cars come down and go north as well each night.
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