Cerrillos, New Mexico
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A westbound Santa Fe manifest, powered by a half-dozen GP30’s and GP35’s, passes over the track that it will soon occupy after it navigates the Tehachapi Loop.
Passing a watering hole for the local cattle, three relatively rare SD39’s pull a westbound train at Watrous, New Mexico.
A lone Santa Fe GP20 rolls a single coal hopper, most likely a bad-order repair, through Larkspur, Colorado. This consist is quite a bit smaller than the usual 4-5 unit, 100+ car trains that frequent this line.
And another FB post, eastbound QLANY at Kingman, Az on September 25, 1994. One of the "required" Santa Fe shots on the 90's.
Exhibiting an “open door” policy most likely caused by overheating on a warm May day, Santa Fe SD45R 5329 leads a westbound train drifting downgrade out of Bealville.
An eastbound Santa Fe manifest passes the semaphores at Levy, New Mexico on Santa Fe’s Raton Pass line. In the distance, a westbound is waiting on the siding.
Fifty-four years ago, Santa Fe SAN DIEGAN Train No. 75 makes a station stop at Fullerton, California. Except for the station building, this scene is barely recognizable today. February 26, 1971.
A pair of Santa Fe cabooses punctuates the end of a train of empty piggyback flats as it climbs the Tehachapi grade at Cliff Siding.
After shooting a southbound Santa Fe train on the bridge at Larkspur, Colorado, we dropped down to road level to get the caboose on the landmark bridge.
April 17, 1971, was a grubby day to shoot trains on Tehachapi, but it was a great day to be there. Battle-weary SP F7A 6430 is running out its last days in helper service and is in the Bealville siding with a southbound manifest as Santa Fe 5619 scoots by on the main. Regardless of the weather, Techachapi was always the place to be with a camera or just watching trains pass.
A westbound Santa Fe manifest descends the Tehachapi grade at Keene, California. GP30/GP35 power was quite common in this era.
My friends and I found Cajon to be a somewhat frustrating place. After getting the “easy” locations, we started to set up at the less-accessible spots. In this case, we were ready for trains on Santa Fe’s south track, and everything ran on the north track in both directions, and a few SP trains passed as well. Here an eastbound auto train climbs the grade with five GP35’s and a GP30 for power.
At the end of a long day spent driving through Abo Canyon we caught one of Santa Fe's SD75Ms screaming out of the siding at Sais, NM on its last lap into Belen. It was a challenge holding my 300 mm lens steady in the fierce wind that sprung up just before sundown.
Why do the best things always show up after the sun disappears? – In the era just before Santa Fe’s unsuccessful merger with the SP, and before Superfleet, it was uncommon to encounter matched sets of road power. After a day of photography on Cajon, we were ready to head to dinner when we saw this train descending the pass. One more frame of film had to be burned to capture one-third of the Santa Fe’s rebuilt FP45’s leading an intermodal train at Devore. Note the westbound SP train in the distance at the upper right. Exhaust from the lead power and the helpers is visible.
Santa Fe GP35 3436 accelerates west out of Seligman, Arizona, on March 9, 1972, while the 9843 waits its turn. A 9800 class RSD-15 in 3436's consist makes its smoky presence. Photo by Joe McMillan.
Pulling a stone train, four rebuilt Santa Fe GP7’s work across the prairie ranchland of Buckholts, Texas.
On August 21, 1991, 34 years ago, Santa Fe B23-7 6406 leads westbound trailers up the grade of the Caprock escarpment between the sidings of Buenos and Southland in rattlesnake country of West Texas. This is the Texas mainline connecting Galveston/Houston/Dallas with the Transcon at Clovis, New Mexico. The train has just left rugged ranching and oil country and will top out in a few minutes in very flat farm and oil country. Photo by Joe McMillan.
Viewed from across a cut on the south track on Cajon Pass, a westbound Santa Fe train with 26 piggyback flats descends the Pass on the north track at 12:08 pm. Two GP35's bracket two GP30's on this train.
A Santa Fe GP20 trundles past the depot at Littleton, Colorado. A nicely restored version of the depot exists today, in the middle of an urban sprawl.
Santa Fe's longest branch line, the San Angelo Subdivision, ran 386 miles across desolate West Texas from San Angelo Junction (west of Brownwood on the Texas main line) to Presidio, Texas, on the Mexican border.
In October 1968, it took me three days of engine and caboose riding to make the trip from Brownwood to Presidio. The first day got me from Brownwood to San Angelo, 71 miles, mostly at night; the second day had me riding a trailing F-unit from San Angelo to Fort Stockton, 167 miles, on train 129; and the third day was a caboose ride from Fort Stockton to Presidio, 145 miles. Yes, it was a long trip. The last segment, from Fort Stockton to Presidio, was mainly at night.
We arrived at the border station just after sun up. The crew went on their rest. I wandered around the area all-day, going to Ojinaga on the Mexican side to photograph the Chihuahua Pacific Railroad (Ch-P), one of my all-time favorite railroads.
Late in the afternoon, the crew went on duty and did some switching and shoved a long cut of cars down to the International bridge to transfer to the Ch-P. In this scene at sunset, October 18, 1968, the units (a GP7 and two GP7Bs) and caboose pause in front of the station while the crew gets their orders to head back to Fort Stockton. It will be another all-night caboose trip, but I will get off at Alpine, Texas, in the wee hours and get a motel room. The following day, I will catch SP's SUNSET LIMITED to El Paso, another Santa Fe freight to Belen, New Mexico, and more freights back to my home in Topeka, Kansas.
The San Angelo Subdivision was once the main line of the KCM&O, a segment in Arthur Stilwell's dream to build a railroad from Kansas City to the Gulf of California, a shorter distance to the Pacific than Kansas City to California ports. Santa Fe acquired the KCM&O in 1928, but it never developed as a through route as planned.
The Subdivision was sold in 1998, and there are still attempts to establish through service.
The depot, shown in this image, was destroyed by fire a few years later.