Back on April 29 I started out from my home in Texas to my new work assignment in New Mexico, on the Navajo Nation. I took a bit of a detour, driving northeast to Fairland, OK to see my mother, who is in a nursing home recovering from a stroke. After I visited with her for several hours, I headed down the highway to I-44 and on to Okie City and I-40. The next day I was in Amarillo, shooting the local action. This Panhandle city was a junction of the Santa Fe, Ft. Worth & Denver, and Rock Island- today, it's BNSF, with only a stub of track running east of town for a few miles as the remains of the Rock-s Choctaw Route. (pics later). When I got to Santa Rosa afer paralelling the former RI Golden State line (pruchased by SP, now a UP main with 16 freights daily), I followed it further down to VAughn, where the UP runs under the BNSF Transcon line. From Vaughn, I went west on US60 paralleling BNSF, and shot this at Willard: Yeah, it's a junk freight, but it's clipping along prety quick toward the crew change at Clovis. To the west is the mountain range that US66, I40, and the Santa Fe have to negotiate. Saw nothing until I got west of Mountainair, then found this sitting on the main: Just forget for a moment that it says BNSF on the side, and you have a classic Super Fleet diesel. 4 GEs, one ES44-9DC, on the point of a stack train. I wasn't sure why it was sitting here, but later this came charging up the grade toward the summit at Mountainair: Three GEs, the middle a GEVO, with a fast pig train, lotsa Yellow Freight pup trailers in this one. Sorry about the sun agle.
After shooting these two, down the road I went-literally. Further along I found this train, sitting still as well. And in a few minutes, this junk freight came up the grade: Looks like 3 CEFX SD90MACs and a greenie deuce. Well, mystery solved- just a little further along, the tracks go from two to one for the worst of this, Abo Canyon. It goes back to two tracks on the other side of the canyon, where trains roll across the (to me) barren wasteland downhill to Belen and the crew change. Didn't get shots of any trains on the west side due to highway traffic, distance from the tracks, and relative inaccessibility.
Cool shots!! Isn't Beansniff double-tracking Abo? I thought I read that in Trains Mag... Did you see any contruction going on the ROW?
Yes, BNSF is in the process of doubletracking this last stretch of Abo Canyon, but I didn't see any construction from where I crossed over the tracks. TRAINS has an article on how it's to be done- something about crossing over and onto each other, it's pretty complicated. One thing for sure- on this last stretch, there's not a lot of area to wirk in, and the two tracks could be separated by some distance. Which is not unusual- in some areas the two mains run apart from each other, esp. between Thoreau and Baca Jct., and also between Iyanbito and a mile east of the Continental Divide.
Ahh, but a great place to chase trains cause you can see them a long way off. Kind of like this out in West Texas near Marathon.
Can't argue that Russ, That train I shot in Willard was visible to me for a few miles before it ever got to where I was standing. There's a curve west of town a ways, and I could see the train on that curve. And between Continental Divide and the Pilot truck stop on I-40, I can watch the trains on the BNSF main, even tho the track is a couple of miles to the north of the I-road, with the eastbounders closer to the red mesas & cliffs. Makes me wish I had a digital with a telephoto lens....sigh.... And all those east bounders were well visible from US60, just not very accessible[ private property, and all that. Still, gotta love those parts of the country for that reason.....altho I prefer a bit more greenery. Guess I'm too much of a Midwesterner at heart.....
Bob is this the Pilot in Jamestown exit 39? or in Gallup itself? the one in Jamestown used to be a Giant co. truckstop and was supposedly the largest in the world. Tom
I'm not sure if Jamestown is the place that Pilot is called, since the exit (which IS 39) is just designated "Refinery" on the sign, mostly 'cause there IS a refinery next to the Pilot. Methinks it's for LPG.
Yep thats what the locals call Jamestown if I remember right. The refinery is from the Giant Corporation and they haul fuel etc., as far as I know out of there. Tom
