Friday, April 14 - Canadian Airlines is in transition once again, as our Air Canada coloured Canadian 737 flies us south to Dallas - Fort Worth. After the flight, its a one hour struggle through heavy traffic on a clogged freeway system to our Dallas hotel, base location for our ARM board meeting. This Radisson Hotel has been chosen as it is adjacent to the Dallas Area Rapid Transit's (DART) light rail line, for which we are provided a VIP pass and will use to get to our meeting tomorrow. DART's bright yellow Japanese built LRV's are clean and efficient, your writer has enjoyed them before.

Saturday, April 15 - We board at Mockingbird station in the morning, and ride through the longest underground section of the route on the red line to downtown. Our board meeting is held in DART's main board room, appropriate for such an occasion. The meeting lasts into the afternoon, then we return to the hotel and prepare for the evening out as a group.

This is great. We depart the hotel aboard a privately owned 1958 GM gas powered bus, a classic indeed. A shorty version (30 foot), it is powered by a good old 1950's GM straight 280 cubic inch six gas engine with four speed automatic transmission - we get lots of looks as we travel around the freeways and streets of Dallas in this conveyance. Our first stop is the Age of Steam Railroad Museum at the Dallas fairgrounds, home of the Union Pacific "Big Boy"

The Age of Steam is a compact and crowded site, with three tracks full of equipment. The collection is generally well presented in appearance, a recent grant is improving a line of unrestored passenger equipment. The huge locomotives are impressive - from the Union Pacific DD 40, the Santa Fe FP45, a Pennsylvania GG1 to the Big Boy itself, there are giants of railroading here. Due to the tight space, it is very difficult to photograph any of them, however. It was also disappointing to see the cut rods on the big steamer, apparently a Union Pacific policy when engines were donated to ensure they would not operate again. A very neat display was the live steam whistle tower - a collection of steam whistles of many tones that can be blown by guests - I can only imagine what it could sound like on a busy day!

Our bus then took us on to the McKinney Ave. Trolley barn, a volunteer operation that serves the McKinney Ave. route on a regular operating basis. Unfortunately, plans to travel by private trolley for this trip were dashed by major street reconstruction, which included some new track work in progress. We toured the car barn and the three trolleys used in the service, plus a "new" car under construction that will be the first "Dinner Trolley" on the line (and in the country?) A Texas interurban is being lavishly rebuilt with a custom interior exclusively for charter dining service while it trundles along the line - a clever idea indeed! Our evening ends with a great Mexican dinner and our bus returns us to the hotel.

Sunday, April 16 - A day to explore Dallas, and we do that with a 15 km walk around White Rock Lake - a large lake and recreation area on the northeast side of the city. After lunch, there's some railfan time, so its back on DART to Dallas Union Station. During a brief stop here, Union Pacific freight trains are observed and photographed, and Amtrak's Texas Eagle arrives from Chicago (en route San Antonio). A pair of GE P40's in the 800 series (a local railfan says this is rare on this train) provide the power for the baggage and 8 car Superliner train. Two express cars are switched off the rear by an Amtrak GP9 stationed at Dallas.

Monday, April 17 - On to Austin, Texas, the state capitol and my business appointment for Tuesday. Austin is a very enjoyable city, the capitol building and riverfront very impressive. It seems like everyone in the city is out for an evening walk or run as we enjoy the extensive walkways along the Colorado River (Lake Austin) in downtown. The Union Pacific (former Missouri Pacific) mainline runs right down the centre of a freeway median (Mopac Blvd.) and into downtown, then crosses the river on a high girder bridge. Several trains are seen crossing the bridge while we are in the area, with many former SP "tunnel motor" SD 40's in evidence, mostly repainted into Union Pacific yellow now. Tuesday sees business, but then time for a ride on the Zilker Zephyr - a three mile 15" gauge park ride hauled by a gas powered model F40. Even though its Tuesday, the half hourly departures are full - lots of school groups.

Thursday, April 20 - Saturday, April 22 - We've traveled through the Texas wildflowers and canyons to San Antonio, home of the Alamo and our next three days. San Antonio is a real treat,and the highlight is the wonderful Riverwalk. Over six miles of river has been made into the feature of the city, below street level in downtown and lined with restaurants, gardens and a real delight. The river is traveled by barges - used for both tours and transportation. This is truly one of the more delightful and unique cities on the continent. Up at street level, the way to get around is on the rubber tired "trolleys", fare is 50 cents and they are operated by the transit system, known as VIA San Antonio. Its "Fiesta" week - an annual colourful festival celebrating the Texas - Mexican heritage of the area.

The rail highlight of San Antonio is the Union Pacific (former Southern Pacific) Sunset route mainline. San Antonio is the southern terminus for Amtrak's Texas Eagle from Chicago, and also a stop for the Sunset Limited. The mainline is very busy, with lots of Union Pacific and still many Southern Pacific painted units cruising through in a steady procession. There are lots of grade crossings and much whistling to be enjoyed as a result.

The lovely SP station there has been fully restored and converted into an entertainment and restaurant complex called Sunset Station. The interior restoration is nice, and the stained glass "Southern Pacific Lines" round window unforgettable. Southern Pacific steam locomotive #794 (2-8-2) is displayed on one of the station tracks. The other tracks remain used, Amtrak spots here but passengers are served through a smaller station facility on the south side of the property. Amtrak has a black SW1200 #1437 here on lease to switch material handling cars on the long haul trains. San Antonio is considering light rail for its future, and a surprise is a familiar DART yellow LRV just being opened as a display at the station.

We enjoy many San Antonio attractions, and note a rail attraction listed in one guide that we pick up. "The Texas Transportation Museum features trains, fire trucks and antique cars", it says. Sounds like something to investigate, but why can't we find any brochures,details or directions? And, why are its hours only Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays? We persevere and finally phone for directions on Saturday AM - off we go.

What we find is a group of rail buffs who have a collection and a site, but - in our opinion - not much else. In the main "Exhibit Building", a prefab structure, is a collection of dusty vintage vehicles looking not too well cared for. Lots of junk lying around everywhere - we would consider it unfit for guests and a safety hazard. The "model railroad" section has an HO gauge under construction, and a tin plate O gauge in operation - except that most of the equipment is off the track and the one operating train loops around all the rest of the stuff looking like it has just been hit by an earthquake.

Outside, the "operating train" consists of a black diesel switcher (I don't know what make?) and caboose which will run "sometime later today" down a quarter mile of track and back. The display train of an unidentified steam locomotive and two Pullman green ATSF passenger cars has inviting stairs to the doors, but the cars are locked and full of parts and other stuff! Some banging is going on in the "Car Barn", but the doors are shut and we choose not to investigate. The garden railway sits alongside the tracks and is operated by a garden railway club, but there is no activity today nor any trains in evidence. Admission was $4 US - and we are here on a Saturday morning at 1100 hours! Our visit lasts less than 30 minutes!

Sunday, April 23 - After enjoying Fiesta for the rest of Saturday, we are headed north to Fort Worth and starting our trip back home. We have some time in Fort Worth to explore a bit, and view the horrible damage to the downtown buildings from the tornado three weeks earlier. It is worse than we expected from the TV coverage. Out at the Stockyards, the Tarantula excursion train arrives behind a Texas Star Clipper dinner train GP7 - the beautiful 1896 built 4-6-0 SP steam locomotive #2248 appears permanently out of service sitting at Grapevine, the other end of the line. New, though, is the dinner train - an F7 and three cars that operates out of the Grapevine depot as far as Carrollton and back.

Our April saga ends with our Canadian Airlines flight back to Vancouver on Sunday evening, after a wonderful ten days of Texas sunshine and sights.