Coal Train

I wouldn't say Texas is flat. The ground swells so gently that one might not notice it unless the eye is focused on the horizon while moving along the highway. Wheat and other grains are grown in the high plains of Texas...the panhandle you might call it and through that part of the countryside, fields of yellow grass are blown by wind...waves of grain so to say...and barren red-orange earth is plowed into long and tidy furrows. I've traveled that way many times and have seen harvested hay rolls dotting the landscape undulating along the skyline...proof that Texas is not flat. 

On this particular day, headed southeast on U.S. Route 287, I saw a freight train pulling a long line of coal cars along the horizon parallel to the highway. I watched the evenly spaced rectangular containers rise and fall against the sky for a long time. As the coal cars grew larger and larger in my view, I realized the tracks were going to intersect the road somewhere ahead of me. 

My camera was sitting in my lap...I picked it up and through the closed window of the truck, I began taking pictures.

I caught the last shots of the train just as we drove under the overpass as the train tracks crossed over the freeway. I looked over my shoulder to see the train speeding into the distance. I thought how fortunate I was to witness such a simple event...a train crossing the highway.