Three: Phoenix, Arizona, Jan. 5, 2015

I was in Phoenix for business and lucky enough to catch this shot while out walking around between meetings. I didn't get a lot of time for traveling  and I was afraid that I would come home empty handed. It would have been a missed opportunity, but during a lunch break I heard the units signal for a grade crossing and caught them as they were returning to the yard -- they are moving away from me in this shot.

I don't know much about the rail situation in Phoenix, but there seems to be a lot of industrial sidings spread out along a corridor to the west of the city. The yard depicted here is actually in downtown. Phoenix, which is getting ready for the Super Bowl in a few weeks, also has a nice light rail operation that has some street running downtown. The trolleys stick their own dedicated lane, but that lane is in the middle or side of the street.

In this shot, the lead car in a two-unit set, makes the turn from East Washington to South Central past the giant football promoting the Super Bowl. It is a pretty impressive operation and it looks to be an easy, fast and clean way to get from the airport to downtown Phoenix. The cars themselves are quite long, modern looking and many bear full-wrap advertising in the style of Japan. During the day they ran in two-car sets but during the morning rush hour I saw three car sets.

Here's another set on East Jefferson after making the downtown loop showing a full-wrap ad scheme. The car is about to pass the U.S. Airways Center (sports complex). While Phoenix is big, modern and spread out, it doesn't seem to have the big pedestrian and vehicle traffic you typically find in a city of the same size back east. Sometimes it really didn't seem like anyone was even there.