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You are in the CarrTracks website Picture Gallery. Southern Pacific Railroad trains on the
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Improvements such as automatic block signals came to the El Paso and Southwestern slowly. At the beginning of 1917, the railroad had automatic block signals on 213 miles of single track of the 816 miles operated. By the end of 1919, the EP&SW had 310 miles of single track with automatic block signals. In 1942 there were 33 sidings and eight train order stations between Carrizozo and Tucumcari. By 1983 the number of sidings had been reduced to 17. In 1942 there were train order stations at Ancho, Corona, Duran, Vaughn, Pastura, Santa Rosa, Cuervo, and Montoya. By 1983 this had been reduced to two: Vaughn and Santa Rosa. By 1985 these were gone and operations were under Direct Traffic Control. During the 70s there was very little traffic on the Tucumcari Line, maybe one to three freight trains a day. Then came deregulation and the Cotton Belt took over the former Rock Island line from Tucumcari to Topeka, KS. Traffic rose to about tens trains a day in each direction. The thing that kept me coming back was the semaphore signals still in operation between Duran and Carrizozo. Tucumcari
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Gallery