Railfanning in the Southwest - Part II

words and pictures by Dave Freshwater 

With a business trip to Los Alamos which included a weekend, as well as an early final day, there were chances to go off and take pictures of trains.  It turned out to be a pretty good time for railfanning.

Last summer, I saw a single instance of a non-BNSF engine on one of their trains (a CSX engine that I wasn’t able to photograph).  This year, the first train that I saw had a Montana Rail Link SD45 as the middle unit.  Next, there were three UP engines leading a stack train east on the BNSF Transcon route at Vaughn, NM.

The highlight of the trip was the UP Olympic Relay Torch Train.  Two engines and 17 cars made up the train, all specially painted.  The train brought the Olympic flame from Amarillo, TX, to Vaughn, NM, where it was shifted to a vehicle convoy, and then carried by runners through Santa Fe and Albuquerque before returning to the train.  While the flame was being transferred (an intermodal operation?), the BNSF did not shut down the main line.  The railroad police in at least one case had to physically restrain a railfan to keep them from being hit by an eastbound stack train.

Vaughn, NM, is the intersection between the UP (now) Golden State Route and the BNSF Transcon.  There are times when trains cross each other at the Transcon’s underpass west of Vaughn.  There are two 9000-foot sidings along the main at Vaughn, which serves as a crew change point.  There are small yards for both the UP and BNSF, as well as an interchange track.  It hasn’t been unusual to find “spare” UP engines in those tracks.  While I was there, a new UP crew picked up an SD70M and added it to their train, using it as the lead of 4 units (and necessitating a change in dispatch paperwork arranged over the radio.)

You still see lots of different paint schemes on these railroads.  The only BNSF scheme I didn’t on this trip was the cream and green BN scheme.  You have to keep the camera ready, because you aren’t quite sure what will appear, like the GP60B units that were in several trains.  UP predecessor roads also show up along its lines.  You don’t have long to wait for trains either.  There are about 60 trains a day on the Transcon and 24 trains a day on the Golden State Route.  It’s not a question of whether you will fill a digital camera disk while railfanning this area, but whether you have enough spare disks along.  My answer at least once was no.

I did get away from Vaughn to take some pictures in Abo Canyon.  I found a nice, scenic spot close to the highway, where the trains weaved through an S curve.  I have to go back there.  I knew that the location was close to the siding in the single-tracked canyon.  But, it was only as I was leaving that I found that the west end of the siding was on the opposite side of the highway embankment and bridge where I had been set up.  Good thing I am headed back out there in February.

Click on the thumb-nail pictures to see larger versions.

...and here are a couple of pictures from Dave's February visit: