ABOVE: Power for the Fort Smith turn is being readied at Springdale the evening of August 9, 2013. Once it is serviced the crew and author will board and will back to the yards and put their train together. TIM HOLMES RIGHT: The Springdale bound Monett Turn passes through Avoca, Ark., on August 9. ROGER A. HOLMES
back again on our way through such places as Johnson and Fayetteville. It was in one of those wooded areas that the 68’s headlight picked up on a doe and fawn safely crossing the tracks ahead of us. We then noticed a second fawn come out of the woods to our right and begin crossing the tracks ahead with no sense of urgency whatsoever. I asked about other critters that resided near the tracks. Speaking with another crewman years before, he said that he had seen a mountain lion. I asked Mitch about bears. “Bears, no, bobcats, yes. I came across a four foot rattler once. Killed him with the air hose wrench! Got him hanging on the wall at home!”
The air horns broke the night air as
the train entered the college town of Fayetteville. As we passed by a nearby bar college students there waved a greeting. Our speed began to increase and soon the rotating beacon of the Greenland airport came into view. The
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headlight bounced off the reflective safety vests of my son Tim and others in our group as we approached. We would see them again at West Fork and Winslow.
There were half a dozen of us that came down from central Illinois to doc- ument some of the last days of the Alcos on the Arkansas & Missouri’s main line. We had photographed and videoed the Monett Turn, each day with a quar-
tet of C420s, first on Wednesday, Au- gust 7, 2013, and then on Friday, Au- gust 9. There was no Monett Turn on Thursday as heavy rains washed out part of the track at several locations. Earlier in the day Friday we were waiting for the southbound Monett Turn on an overhead highway bridge at Butterfield,
Mo. A pickup truck
stopped and a young mother with her two year old son stopped and asked
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