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You are in the CarrTracks website Picture Gallery. Santa Fe Railway trains on the Transcon
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Along with my own pictures, I've include photographs taken by Jack Delano. In March 1943, the Office of War Information gave Jack an assignment that any railfan of that time or even today would die for. The assignment was to ride Santa Fe freight trains from Chicago all the way to Los Angeles and photograph how the railroad worked. Jack took over 1,000 pictures during that trip and these are available on the Library of Congress website. Most of the pictures are black and white, however there are a few color pictures such as the one above that he took in Kansas City. They are not copyrighted since Jack was working for the government. His pictures are not included on my photo CDs. I've also integrated some pictures from my October 2006 trip. One interesting feature as you drive across the Transcon is that the trains will change. It takes about 24 hours for the hot piggyback trains to go from Barstow to Clovis. So some trains you will see at either Barstow or Clovis, you won't see at Winslow as these trains are scheduled through there in the middle of the night. Look at my sample regional timetable. This page is very wide. It is from 1995 and covers eastbound scheduled trains between Barstow and Belen, NM. If you want more information on Santa Fe freight trains, I have two books available for sale. Here is a little history on the lines I will be covering. In 1857, Lt. Edward Fitzgerald Beale surveyed a wagon road along the 35th parallel from New Mexico across Arizona and into California. In 1866, the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad based in Springfield, Missouri, obtained a Congressional charter to build from St Louis, across Indian Territory, to Albuquerque, then along the 35th parallel following the Beale survey to Needles, CA. Congress wanted the project completed by July 4, 1878. However, the railroad ran into financial trouble and by 1872, had completed only 361 miles to Vinita, Indian Territory (present day Oklahoma). In 1880, the Santa Fe Railroad entered into a partnership with the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway and purchased one-half of the A&P stock. Using the A&P charter, both the SL&SF and the AT&SF shared equally in the expenses of constructing the tracks from Albuquerque to the Colorado River. In December 1879 the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad sent Lewis Kingman to plan a route across Arizona from the Little Colorado River to the Colorado River. In February 1880 Kingman returned to Albuquerque to begin planning the actual route west. Grading began on April 8, 1880 and track laying in July. The construction crew had around 4,000 men and 2,000 mules and work advanced at about two miles per day. The railroad finally connected with the Southern Pacific south of Needles on July 12, 1883. |
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Further east, the Panhandle and Santa Fe Railroad connected with the Pecos Valley Railroad at Texico, NM in 1899. The Pecos Valley Railroad line from Texico down through Roswell was acquired by the Santa Fe in 1901. In 1902, survey work began on the future line from Texico to Belen. The new route would have lower grades than the route over Raton Pass. Track laying from Clovis to Vaughn began in 1906 and was completed in 1907. The Belen Cutoff from Texico through Clovis to Dalies, NM began full operations on July 1, 1908. The Belen Cutoff shortened the distance from Chicago to Belen by only six miles, however it decreased the average grade from 158 feet per mile through Raton Pass to 66 feet per mile. Most of the freight traffic shifted off Raton to the Belen Cutoff in 1909. The Santa Fe installed a 24 lever mechanical interlocking at Dallies, NM in 1908. Automatic block signals were installed between Baca to Perea during the summer of 1913. I don't have more details on the double track project or signal installation, but know most of it was done around the 1913 time frame. CTC between Clovis and Belen was installed in 1944. The Belen to West Defiance CTC installation was completed in 1984. Between 1996 and 1999, the Santa Fe added more double track to the line between Belen and Melrose. Today there are still three short sections of single track: the lower end of Abo Canyon, the fill over the Union Pacific at Vaughn, and the Pecos River Bridge west of Fort Sumner. In the good old days (50 years ago) on the First District (between Belen and Gallup), there were train order offices at Dalies, Laguna, Grants, and Thoreau. Steam engines could take water at Dalies, Marmon, Grants, North Chaves eastbound, South Chaves westbound, and Wingate. For those modeling the Santa Fe in the late 60s, the library contains a series of pages with detailed freight train consists. The trains featured on those pages were observed at Winslow and Barstow. For modern photographers I've assembled a schedule of sorts of the trains I've observed recently (2011) between Amarillo and Flagstaff. Texico |
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