Tuesday, March 18, 2025

TABLE OF CONTENTS

1.  Crater Loops, Little Gore Canyon, Flaming Aspen and Other Vanishing Splendor  

2.  Curtis Hill -- Cimarron River Valley
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/11/curtis-hill-cimarron-river-valley.html

3.   Pecos River Bridge -- Fort Sumner, New Mexico
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/11/pecos-river-bridge-fort-sumner-new.html 

4.   Crozier Canyon and Truxton Canyon -- Where the Waters Flow
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/11/crozier-canyon-and-truxton-canyon-where.html

5.  Crookton Cutoff -- Eagle Nest,Doublea, Crookton and Seligman
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/11/crookton-cutoff-eagle-nest-doublea-and.html

6.  Loma Alta, Lucy and the New Mexico High Plains
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/12/loma-alta-lucy-and-new-mexico-high.html 

7.  Tehachapi Loop Saved My Marriage
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/12/railroad-photography-at-tehachapi-loop.html 

8.   Travels with Mighty Dog in Search Of the Kansas City Southern;  Austin, Todd and Ladd; Arkansas and Oklahoma; Kansas and Oklahoma; Avard Subdivision and Other Oddities
http://www.waltersrail.com/2015/12/trains-travels-with-mighty-dog-in.html 

9.  BNSF Transcon in the Texas Panhandle
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/01/railroad-photography-bnsf-transcon-in.html 

10.  Abo Canyon:  Then and (S)now

http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/01/abo-canyon-then-and-snow.html 

11.  Lombard Canyon and the Three Rivers
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/02/lombard-canyon-and-three-rivers.html 

12.  Mountains May Begin With Montana, but Fugichrome Ends With Me

http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/02/mountains-may-begin-with-montana-but_24.html  

13.  Mullan Pass:  Mullan on my Mind
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/03/blog-post.html 

14.  Kingman Canyon:  What am I Doing up Here? 
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/03/kingman-canyon-what-am-i-doing-up-here.html  


15.  BNSF Transcon:  Not Every Meeting is a Waste of Time
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/03/bnsf-transcon-not-every-meeting-is.html 


16.  The Arbuckles are Worn Down, and I'm Headed There:  AT&SF and BNSF Railroad Photography From an Oklahoma Sinkhole

http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/04/the-arbuckles-are-worn-down-and-im.html  

17.  BNSF, UP and MRL in the Idaho Panhandle
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/04/bnsf-up-and-mrl-in-idaho-panhandle.html 

18.  Burlington Northern:  Trinidad to Walsenburg (Someone Built a Railroad Through Here?)
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/06/burlington-northern-trinidad-to.html

19.  Santa Fe on Curtis Hill (Things Ain't What They Used to Be)
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/05/santa-fe-on-curtis-hill-things-aint.html 

20.  BNSF West of Belen:  MP 27.8 to 31.9
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/07/bnsf-west-of-belen-mp-278-to-319.html 

21.  BNSF at Flagstaff (and a little AT&SF)
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/08/bnsf-at-flagstaff-and-little-at.html


22.  I Feel Like the Rock Island (Memories of a Stricken Railroad)
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/08/i-feel-like-rock-island-memories-of.html

23.  Kansas City Southern:  Requiem for White Knights and Telephone Poles
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/09/kansas-city-southern-requiem-for-white.html

24.  BNSF at Curtis Hill:  Where the West Begins
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/09/bnsf-at-curtis-hill-where-west-begins.html

25.  Tennessee Pass:  Alas
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/09/tennessee-pass-alas.html

26.  BNSF West of Wellington
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/10/bnsf-west-of-wellington.html

27.  Cajon 2016:  Before the Fire
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/11/cajon-2016-before-fire.html 


28.  Union Pacific:  Aspen Mountain Through Echo Canyon
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/12/union-pacific-aspen-mountain-through.html

29.  Burlington Northern at Crawford Hill  
http://www.waltersrail.com/2016/12/burlington-northern-at-crawford-hill_13.html

30.  St. Louis Railroads -- as I Remember Them 
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/01/st-louis-railroads-as-i-remember-them.html

31.  BNSF Across the Sacramento Valley:  Wild Burros and Cold Bears
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/01/bnsf-across-sacramento-valley-wild.html

32. She Caught the Katy and Left me a Mule to Ride
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/02/she-caught-katy-and-left-me-mule-to-ride.html

33.  Santa Fe in the Unassigned Lands
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/03/i-live-in-what-once-was-called.html

34.  BNSF:  Another Look at Crozier Canyon
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/04/bnsf-another-look-at-crozier-canyon.html

35.  BNSF:  Colorado River to Goffs Hill
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/05/bnsf-transcon-needles-to-goffs-hill.html

36.  Cajon Pass:  After the Fire
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/06/cajon-pass-after-fire_29.html

37.  BNSF in Oklahoma:  Avard Subdivision
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/08/bnsf-in-oklahoma-avard-subdivision.html

38.  Back East!  Lost in the Trees
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/11/back-east-lost-in-trees.html

39.  Union Pacific:  The Craig Branch in its Prime
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/12/union-pacific-craig-branch-in-its-prime.html

40.  Union Pacific from Point of Rocks to Granger:  Wherein Mighty Dog Clashes with the Serpent
http://www.waltersrail.com/2017/12/union-pacific-from-point-of-rocks-to.html


41.  Trials and Tribulations of Train Photography
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/01/trials-and-tribulations-of-train_3.html

42.  The Frisco of my Youth:  Both Gone
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/01/the-frisco-of-my-youth-both-gone.html

43.  When That Evening Sun Goes Down:  Ellinor After Hours
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/02/when-that-evening-sun-goes-down-ellinor.html

44.  Nebraska's Sandhills in Transition
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/03/nebraskas-sandhills-in-transition.html

45.  BNSF:  Highway 47 to Mountainair
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/04/bnsf-highway-47-to-mountainair.html

46.  Rock Island and Union Pacific on the Chisholm Trail
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/05/rock-island-and-union-pacific-on.html

47.  Union Pacific, Southern Pacific and Western Pacific Potpourri:  Arnold Loop, Echo Canyon, Aiken Hill, Sherman Hill and Donner Summit
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/08/union-pacific-southern-pacific-and.html

48.  Lake Pend Oreille! or The Importance of the Angle of Incidence
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/08/lake-pend-oreille-or-importance-of.html

49.  Sunset on the Missouri Pacific
http://www.waltersrail.com/2018/10/sunset-on-missouri-pacific.html

50.  BNSF Transcon:  Kansas City to Cajon (Part One:  Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas)
https://www.waltersrail.com/2018/12/bnsf-transcon-kansas-city-to-cajon-part.html

51.  BNSF Transcon:  Kansas City to Cajon (Part Two:  Clovis to Belen) 
https://www.waltersrail.com/2019/01/bnsf-transcon-kansas-city-to-cajon-part.html

52.  BNSF Transcon:  Kansas City to Cajon (Part Three:  Belen to Seligman) 

69.  The Graying  

71.  O,Columbia! 


73.  BNSF:  Trinidad to Cedarwood 

74.  California 2020  

75.  Belen Revisited 



78.  The Land That Swallows Trains -- Part One 

79:  The Land That Swallows Trains -- Part II 

80.  The Land That Swallows Trains -- Part 3 

81.  The Land that Swallows Trains -- Part IV 

82.  The Land That Swallows Trains -- Part 5 

83.  BNSF:  Trinidad Hill  

84.  BNSF:  Providence Hill

85.  Union Pacific:  Palisade Canyon

86.  Return to Colorado  

87.  BNSF:  Truxton Flyover to Sacramento Wash  (With Thoughts about the Desert, W.B. Yeats and the End of Life)

88.  Lawrence:  U-boats to Ditch Lights

89.  Union Pacific:  The Law of Unintended Consequences 

90.  Union Pacific:  Maricopa Mountains

91.  West of Gillette

92.  Mescal Summit and the El Paso and Southwestern 

93.  West of Dragoon

94.  East of Dragoon

95.  Union Pacific:  Steins Pass

96.  Powder River Basin:  Part One (BNSF)

97.  RIP:  Bear the Mighty Dog 

98.  Powder River Basin:  Part Two (UP)

99.  Union Pacific Along the Oregon Trail:  Farewell Bend to Hot Lake

100.  The Old Man and the Snow 

101.  Colorado in Fall   

102.  Sweet Soo

103.  My Favorite Western Grades:  Part One 

104.  My Favorite Western Grades:  Part Two


106.  Sundown:  Part Two

107.  Sundown:  Part Three

108.  Canadian, Texas 

109.  East of Tehachapi

110.  BNSF Across the Cascades

111.  Union Pacific:  North of El Paso

112.  Marias Pass!

113.  BNSF at Glendo

114.  Fallen Flags

115.  Union Pacific in the West Texas Chihuahuan Desert

116.  Union Pacific:  Walcott, Wyoming

117.  CPKC in the Choctaw Nation

118.  New Mexico  

New Mexico

 




BNSF 6618 West explodes out of Abo Canyon.
































In the last sunlight, New Mexico shines, a cacophony of color.  The approaching night settles slowly, quietly, like a man silently slipping into bed.  The sun seems brighter here, redder, as though the world's forge is located in the middle of this extravagant land, and if you stand quietly at dusk, you may hear what sounds like the breathing of the earth.

When I was young, I would hike into the hills before sunrise and wait for the dawn.  In those last fleeting moments of darkness, the wind was still and I could hear below the infinite silence of the desert.  Before the sun rises, there is a moment of clarity, neither day nor night, a moment signalling the nearness of abrupt change.  I have learned to recognize moments of change, and now in old age I await them eagerly, because everything else is simple noise, simple static.

Raton Pass

An eastbound pig train has left Raton, New Mexico, and is beginning the climb, on a three percent ruling gradient, to the summit of Raton Pass on the New Mexico-Colorado border.



Raton Pass became part of the second American transcontinental railroad when the Santa Fe built southwest from La Junta, Colorado, eventually joining the Southern Pacific at Deming, New Mexico.  (When the Santa Fe took over the Atlantic and Pacific, the line to Deming was little used and eventually sold.)

When Santa Fe completed the Belen Cut-off in the early 20th century, the line across Raton Pass became a secondary main used primarily by the railroad's shining stainless steel passenger trains.  If the mainline were congested, dispatchers would sometimes route a few freights through the pass, like the train above, but by the 1970's, freight trains were rare.

For a short time, loaded coal trains climbed the ruling three percent, a grade so steep that the loads were broken in half and hauled separately over the top.  I was living in St. Louis at the time, and before I could travel west to capture the spectacle on film, the trains vanished like smoke, never to return.

When the Santa Fe merged with the BNSF, the new railroad ran a few trains south from Denver along the old Colorado and Southern to Trinidad, Colorado, where a transfer track was constructed to connect with the line across Raton Pass.  This routing south to Albuquerque and El Paso added a train or two per day to the mix but was not profitable, and the transfer track was later pulled up.

Today (March 2025) Amtrak owns the line across Raton Pass, where the east and west Southwest Chief (Numbers 3 and 4) are the only trains on the rails.  The place is quiet now, but the mountains still echo with faint remnants of those mysterious coal trains.

Eastbound Amtrak No. 4 on the three percent grade.











No. 4 on a very cold day in January.

























Trinchera Pass

In far northeastern New Mexico, the Raton-Clayton Volcano Field rises above the high plains like row upon row of enormous red mole hills, as though giants once roamed this earth, the space between each eruption filled with hard red lava that has not eroded over the eons, while the surrounding plains have slowly subsided into what today appear to be long valleys.  The Colorado and Southern crossed the field at Trinchera Pass, its summit about one mile south of the Colorado-New Mexico border. 

The line originally saw few trains.  After passage of the Clean Air Act in the 1970's and the explosion of coal from the Powder River Basin, traffic increased exponentially.  When BN and Santa Fe merged in the 1990's, loaded southbound coal trains began running on the Boise City Subdivision to Amarillo, which avoids the volcano field and the steep climb to the summit.  Today (March 2025), the line sees mostly empty northbound coal drags.  Images below of loaded southbounds are now just a fond memory.

Winters are harsh.  The soil, such as it is, will not grow crops.  Some sturdy souls raise cattle, but lack of moisture and native grass limits herd size, as do winter temperatures.  Mostly the country is deserted, with a few tiny settlements doting the land like ashes blown by a fierce wind.

The only communities of any size are Trinidad, Colorado, and Raton, New Mexico, both about 45 minutes away by automobile (if you drive fast and know where you are going).  At night there is zero light pollution.  Zero.  You can stand on a hill, and even under a full moon the stars stretch from horizon to horizon.  The night sky is brilliant, unlike anything you have seen in even small cities, or even ranch lands illuminated sporadically with mercury-vapor lamps.

Even if you are the most ardent and dogmatic atheist, even if you are convinced that God is a myth created to make people feel better, even if you believe that organized religion is the greatest evil ever created by man, the star field on a completely black night at Trinchera Pass will give you pause.

As southbounds approach the high plains, they climb out of a narrow valley and swing around this horseshoe curve, as shown by the pushers above.











An empty coal train navigating through the volcano field.




A trio of Grinsteins leads a coal load near the summit.




Coal empties dodge afternoon showers.




Winding through the volcanos.
































Tularosa Basin

North of El Paso, the Tularosa Basin slopes upward between mountain ridges rising like prison walls.  The first atomic bomb was detonated in this country.  The land is dry, treeless.  When the wind blows, dust shrouds the valley for hours, sometimes days.

In its northern reaches, the valley holds an immense lava flow, the Valley of Fires, which from the surrounding hills looks like a scabbed-over wound.  Though the lava oozed thousands of years ago, it seems fresh, undisturbed, as though ten thousand more years may pass without noticeable change.


Valley of Fires















Not to be outdone, the southern reaches of the basin are home to the White Sands National Park -- about 230 square miles of gypsum sand, with dunes as deep as 60 feet.  This largest of its kind dunefield looks like a fantastic pile of egg whites ready to be made into a gigantic Angel Food cake.  Unfortunately, the cake will include the White Sands Missle Range, where in its northern extremities, outside the dunes, the first atomic bomb was detonated. 







Coal mines once flourished in the mountains, and a railroad ran north from El Paso to provide transport.  By the beginning of the 20th century, the mines had played out, and the railroad pushed further north to a connection with the Rock Island at Santa Rosa -- with access to other mines and ultimately Kansas City.

The tracks were operated for years by Southern Pacific until that line was swallowed by Union Pacifc, which in the 21st century runs about 8-12 trains per day.  About half are ridiculously long intermodals, with the remainder scattered between grain and manifests.  The tracks run east of both sand dunes and lava flow.

Like so many places in the West, the absence of civilization and noise allows one to hear trains across huge distances.  The tracks climb out of the basin just north of Carrizozo on a steep grade, and you can hear the engines struggling into the climb ten miles away, sometimes more.

This was once Apache Country, freely roamed, unfenced, wild, untamed.  But the relentless push of westward European migration eventually drove the Apache from the valley and onto a reservation in the eastern mountains.  When you look at the land, you wonder if the cost was worth it. 

Northbound stacks.  The Valley of Fires sits ominously in the background.

 

Southbound deep in the Tularosa Basin.






Northbound grain.




Carrizozo, New Mexico.



Coyote Siding sits at the top of the grade above the Tulsarosa Basin.




A "meet" north of El Paso.

































Steins Pass

West from El Paso, the old SP Sunset Route crosses southern New Mexico on land so flat that if you stand on a chair and look north, you think you can see Canada.  A large sign on Interstate 10 marks the Western Continental Divide, with the tracks beside the road, but there is no apparent rise in the ground, no indication that water will run east or west depending on which side of the line you stand.  To the naked eye, it appears that rain will simply sit on the ground, flowing nowhere, until sinking below the surface.  

West of Lordsburg, the stage changes abruptly, as though a new backdrop has fallen from the sky.  Highway and railroad sink precipitously into the Animas Valley, once a huge lake, now a barren alkali flat in which only shoots of salt grass survive.  Signs along the interstate warn of massive dust storms, and when the wind blows, the Peloncillo Mountains to the west disappear.



Westbound trains climb a short grade to a saddle in the mountains, while eastbounds grind upgrade many miles to a summit a few miles east of the Arizona-New Mexico border.  The westbound grade was once a helper district, but 21st century motive power conquers the hill unscathed.

This place is called Steins Pass, pronounced Steen's, named for the soldier who led the first team surveying the area after the Gadsden Purchase.  A small settlement once stood at the summit, never more than about 200 people, but both town and residents disappeared years ago.  A few deserted structures remain, and one trailer appeared occupied the last time I drove through.  

Of the many lonely places in the West, this may be the lonliest.  

Across the alkali flats.








This eastbound manifest has crossed the Animas Valley and is approaching Lordsburg.  Steins Pass is in the middle of the image.  Behind it rise Arizona's Chiricahua Mountains.




Eastbound with the 50th anniversary unit on point.




This westbound has crested the summit and is approaching the Arizona-New Mexico border.




At dusk, eastbound stacks make the long climb to the summit.




This westbound manifest is climbing out of the Animas Valley.



Dusk at Lordsburg.

































Belen Cut-off

From the beginning, Raton Pass was a bottleneck.  As traffic on the Santa Fe grew, both east and westbound trains piled up at the bottom of the grade, waiting patiently for their turn to struggle up the three percent ruling grade.

So like a bourbon drinker whose liver is failing, the Santa Fe looked for alternatives to hard liquor, and in the early 20th century constructed the Belen Cut-off, which traveled southwest through Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle and the central New Mexico High Plains, bypassing the Raton-Clayton Volcano Field, joining the original mainline at Dalies across the Rio Grande.  The small settlement of Belen soon became a major division point where transcontinental trains received new crews and a thorough inspection.

The cut-off was originally single-track.  As traffic grew, multiple new sidings were installed, but it soon became apparent that a second track was needed.  Santa Fe bit the bullet in the mid-nineties, instituting the largest railroad construction project of the last half of the 20th century.  When completed, the new double-track line saw as many as 100 trains per day (though the average was closer to 60), and the Raton Pass line became an afterthought and was eventually sold to Amtrak.

The Belen Cut-off now hosts what I believe to be the longest division on BNSF -- 388 miles from Wellington, Kansas, to Amarillo, Texas.  The land is open on this route, and the few settlements do little to slow trains.  From Amarillo southwest, the tracks traverse the Llano Estacado, the flattest land in the world, land so monotonous that you can almost fall asleep in a moving vehicle, run off the road, keep going until your foot falls off the accelerator and hit nothing but native short grass.

But once beyond the Llano, east central New Mexico offers amazing and surprising geography, a land of cacti and little rainfall, where ranchers have learned to raise cattle in what at first glance appears inhospitable wilderness.

On the Llano Estacado, stacks are rolling west of Clovis, New Mexico, dodging an afternoon thunderstorm. 

































Crossing the Pecos River at Fort Sumner, New Mexio.






The high plains of eastern New Mexico.



In this country, only the earth's curvature blocks the view.


Eastbounds climb a shallow grade to Mountainair, then begin a long descent into the valley of the Rio Grande, avoiding the southern end of the Manzano Mountains by snaking through Abo Canyon.  This westboiund is half-way down the grade.



Before completion of the double-track project, westbound stacks prepare to enter Abo Canyon.








Eastbound emerging from Abo Canyon.





Deep in Abo Canyon before double-track.



Eastbound crossing the Rio Grande Valley, approaching Manzano Mountains and Abo Canyon.


These trains are crossing the wide valley of the Rio Grande.


This westbound has left Belen and is climbing out of the valley of the Rio Grande.  Manzano Mountains rise in the background.

































Dalies to Arizona

Santa Fe's original line to the West Coast crossed both Raton and Glorietta Passes, then ran south through rugged Apache Canyon to reach the valley of the Rio Grande and Albuquerque.  The tracks then followed the river south before turning southwest to Deming and a connection with the Southern Pacific.  Later, the railroad took over the Atlantic and Pacific line west through central New Mexico and Arizona, and this became the famed "Transcon."

The Belen Cut-off joined the Transcon west of the Rio Grande on a plateau above the flood plain called Dalies.  The junction is reachable on rough dirt roads, but the only thing there is the railroad -- no houses, people, structures of any kind.  Past the junction, the tracks descend quickly into the valley of the Rio Puerco and begin the long journey across western New Mexico, running north past Grants to bypass the remnants of the ancestral Rocky Mountains.

Though the territory is as rugged and unforgiving  as anything in the West, the original locating engineers plotted an ingenious path through canyons, lava fields and river valleys to avoid serious grades.  The Western Continental Divide is crossed with little concern in a wide valley, as though when the earth was created, a special place was reserved for this railroad.

The original U.S. Route 66 closely followed the tracks, providing a gateway to California for the Oklahoma Dust Bowl Diaspora of the 1930's.  Our memories are so decrepit that we forget the trail of "Okies" across the red sandstone landscape, a living river that forever changed the face of California.

My relatives made that journey and tried to establish a life there, but the sudden wealth of many (not including my relatives) drove the cost of living through the ionosphere, and the stragglers eventually returned home.  I went to college in California, the result of a scholarship, but I, too, quickly returned to my  roots upon graduation.

Now in old age I feel more at home in New Mexico than I ever did in California, though New Mexico also is not home, but I feel closer to the land here, to the many who have struggled to survive, some successfully, others not.  The long parade stretches back to a time before history, and no one knows how far it reaches into the future.

Eastbound autos are climbing out of the valley of the Rio Puerco to the top of the hill at Dalies.

 

Eastbound stacks with Mount Taylor in the background.

 

An Office Car Special prepares to cross the Rio Puerco.







Eastbound stacks on the edge of Laguna Pueblo.



Laguna Pueblo


Grants, New Mexico.



Westbound approaching Western Continental Divide.





Manuelito, New Mexico.




Entering New Mexico.





On the New Mexico-Arizona border.

















New Mexico always shines, but it shines brightest at dusk.  I leave you with these images.


Across the High Plains.




In the valley of the Rio Grande.



West of Gallup.


Approaching Abo Canyon.



Crossing New Mexico 47.





To see my other posts, go to waltersrail.com.


To see my photographs on Flickr, go to https://www.flickr.com/photos/jpwalters/.