Close but no cigar! Many of you here know I’ve been trying to catch two trains at this location called Monarch here in Madisonville, Ky for a long time now, where the Paducah and Louisville Railway (PAL) crosses over the CSX Henderson Subdivision (HD) and I almost did today, October 14th, 2022.

On the lower track off in the distance sits CSX M502, a mixed fright that runs from Radnor Yard at Nashville, TN to Clearing Yard, in Chicago, IL, and was told by dispatch to stop short of the crossings through downtown Madisonville as they needed to wait on a southbound at the location know as Arklow. The southbound was still about 15 minutes out and they didn’t want 502 to block all the crossings through downtown.

I setup to get him passing under the Paducah and Louisville Railway when I heard a train blowing the crossing about 3 miles away about 15 minutes into 502’s wait! I had hoped dispatch would give him a signal to move during the time that this empty CSXT 294 appeared leading an empty coke train northbound on the PAL (in YN2 Paint even) arrived or was passing through on its way back from unloading at the Calvert City Terminal at Calvert City, KY. I was hoping it was a PAL train, but these days I’ll take whatever I can get!

Well as you can see, M502 sat still on the HD, as the scene basked in the early morning fall light, and never moved at all until about 1 minute after this train cleared Monarch! It happens and I still love the resulting picture but isn’t what I wanted and of course I plan to keep trying! Persistence will pay off!

Tech Info: DJI Mavic Air 2S Drone, 22mm, f/2.8, 1/500, ISO 100.