Pasa-Get-Down-Dena
There is nowhere that fueled my childhood love of the Railroad nearly as much as Pasadena, Texas did from about the time I was 6 to when I left Texas for Virginia at 18. The nonstop action, sounds, and hustle & bustle that would ring across Houston's own port city 24/7 was enough for any young railfan to need go nowhere else.
Myself and several other Houston railfans' favorite operation in town was Kinder-Morgan's Coke shuttle over the old SP which prior to 2020 ran in the late afternoon across Pasadena before becoming a very early morning job before finally being cut off altogether last week with the closing of Lyondell-Bassel's Pasadena refinery that sourced K-M's Coke. The familiar low warbling of double 645s pulling across the prefectly flat Buffalo Bayou basin always told that the K-M was somewhere near.
While visiting home back in January, I made 2 outings back to Pasadena to shoot the Coke transfer, operating as PTRA Job 143. In the first of these two outings, 143 is seen from Pasadena Jct. across from PTRA's Pasadena Yard at daybreak crawling west towards the Lyondell Plant with an iconic Pasadena backdrop.
Pasa-Get-Down-Dena
There is nowhere that fueled my childhood love of the Railroad nearly as much as Pasadena, Texas did from about the time I was 6 to when I left Texas for Virginia at 18. The nonstop action, sounds, and hustle & bustle that would ring across Houston's own port city 24/7 was enough for any young railfan to need go nowhere else.
Myself and several other Houston railfans' favorite operation in town was Kinder-Morgan's Coke shuttle over the old SP which prior to 2020 ran in the late afternoon across Pasadena before becoming a very early morning job before finally being cut off altogether last week with the closing of Lyondell-Bassel's Pasadena refinery that sourced K-M's Coke. The familiar low warbling of double 645s pulling across the prefectly flat Buffalo Bayou basin always told that the K-M was somewhere near.
While visiting home back in January, I made 2 outings back to Pasadena to shoot the Coke transfer, operating as PTRA Job 143. In the first of these two outings, 143 is seen from Pasadena Jct. across from PTRA's Pasadena Yard at daybreak crawling west towards the Lyondell Plant with an iconic Pasadena backdrop.