How busy is the UP main in Austin, and what would be a good hotel to stay at to watch the action?
There are about 24 trains a day 2 amtrak. There really isnt a hotel from which to train watch from. A good location to railfan from is Farwest Blvd and Mopac. There is a footbridge across the freeway and tracks where there is a park, on Great Northern Blvd to watch trains.
Some rooms in the Hyatt have a good view of the tracks - but the tracks are 3 to 4 blocks across a park from the hotel. There are hotels in the MoPac (Loop 1)/Hwy 183 area near the tracks but none of them have rooms facing the track. I suppose that is for noise control reasons.
dd
I live in Austin. I would guess during daylite hours it would average a train per hour at least that has been the case in the times I have gone out there train fanning. If you look at the link in my signature you will see pix from Austin. The bridge where I took most of the pix is downtown & easily accessable from 6th Street & North Lamarr Blvd. In fact from the Whole Foods parking lot located at that location you can actually see the train from the lot. If you go to the bridge the train will be going real, real slow as it will be making a 90 degree turn from north to west. You can also walk from the bridge to the A/trak station which is about a 1/4 mile from the bridge. The Far West location is in North Austin & would be about 10/15 miles from downtown. When U hit Austin & want to connect U can Email me @ spbed@yahoo.com