Action in Downtown Fargo

After my little reconnaissance mission in Fargo, I was able to head out for a few hours in the morning of May 12 to see some trains. I got up at pretty much the crack of dawn and left the hotel (the Hilton Garden Inn, a very nice place) to head downtown. I saw the grand Northern Pacific depot and decided to take some photos there. As you can see, the shadows on the caboose and display train were a bit long at 06:50!


Apparently this caboose was Great Northern X227. It used to have a Great Northern logo on it but not at this time.

I heard some train horns so I decided to try to get a shot of a train with the depot in the background. Soon I saw an eastbound freight approaching, but it stopped by McDonald's and waited.


The reason became obvious when a fast westbound intermodal came around the corner. This baby had five engines on the head end, led by Dash-9 BNSF 5122.


Within five minutes, the train was gone and BNSF 6222 was on its way.


BNSF 9071 was pushing on the rear of the coal train.


After those two trains passed, I wandered around the depot, taking a few photos.

Soon enough another train came rolling in, only to stop by the McDonald's.


Note the trailers on this intermodal train.

The BNSF Twin Cities division headquarters is right there too, and it looks like they did a crew change.


Soon enough, BNSF 4920 was on its way past the depot.


Here's a shot of a couple of UPS trailers of differing sizes.


Trailers on flat cars (TOFC) are quite common on BNSF through Fargo, whereas they are a rarity in Canada with only a few holdouts like the Hudson Bay Railway between Thompson and Churchill. I think CN and CP consciously got out of the trailer business several years ago, although blog partner Trackside Treasure notes they were in the business for several decades. I photographed UPS, FedEx, TIP Intermodal, Roadway, YRC Worldwide, Clipper, HMD, and Alliance Shippers trailers.

All of that action took place in less than an hour. After those three trains, I headed east into Minnesota to the Dilworth yard to see what was up..

Read on!