2:50 p.m., UP 8331 with a northbound intermodal. I'm standing on a bicycle path up the hill with the Highway 10 (Cantrell Rd) bridge over the tracks just back of me. The tracks curve to the left here and cross over the Arkansas River on the Baring Cross railroad bridge.
The train is on Main One. The tracks that go to the right belong to the Little Rock & Western and go westward to Perry and Danville, Arkansas on former Rock Island tracks.
Another train is heading north on Main Two, to the left of Main One. Both have stopped at 2:53 p.m. The Arkansas State Capitol is just left of center and Union Station is to the right. The legislature just finished it's every-two-year session, which included a $200 millon tax CUT, the largest tax cut in the state's history (the grocery tax was cut in half). Arkansas had a $910 million surplus last year and there were hopes the legislature would give us a rebate, but they decided to use that for schools and roads (too bad they couldn't talk to Amtrak about starting a Little Rock-Memphis train as an experiment).
Locomotive 2432, looking through the grass and trees under the Highway 10 bridge.
UP 9400, second unit in the other northbound train.
Heading the train on Main Two was TFM 2617. Both trains are still stopped.
Milwaukee Road gondola #92814.
Wisconsin Central #62127.
3:13 p.m., southbound UP 2486.
Arkansas Queen riverboat heading upstream on the Arkansas River on an Easter cruise, about 1:40 p.m. April 8, 2007. It is based in North Little Rock. The Arkansas River starts near Leadville, Colorado and helped create the Royal Gorge, then heads east and southeast 1,450 miles to the Mississippi River in southeast Arkansas (the 7th longest river in the country). It travels through Kansas and Oklahoma before it reaches Arkansas and is navigable all the way to Tulsa, Oklahoma from it's intersection with the Mississippi. The Port of Little Rock has both rail and barge traffic (BNSF serves the Port and has a couple of locomotivs stationed here as does the Little Rock Port Railroad).
I'm looking to the northwest toward Oklahoma and the west. This shot was taken from the parking lot of where our Railroad Club meets.