Railfanning in the Southwest

by Dave Freshwater 

Vaughn, New Mexico 

Vaughn is a junction between the BNSF and the UP.

My first business destination was Albuquerque. The first place I went off to railfan was east of Albuquerque, the town of Vaughn, NM. Not only did the BNSF TRANSCON pass through, there appeared to be an interchange with the UP on the maps. As I headed for the town, I had our normal NVNTRAK railfan luck. I saw my first train within 5 minutes of getting near the rail line. Stopping on the side of the road to photograph that west bound train stack train, I got to photograph an eastbound manifest freight and another west bound stack train as well. I then headed off to Vaughn, outrunning the east bound and figuring that I would be able to get into position to photograph it again.

When I got into Vaughn, the crossing gates were down and signals were flashing. But no train appeared. After a time, I began to make sense of the traffic on the scanner. One of the 4 units on the manifest freight was having problems with a traction motor. It was stalled on the outskirts, on the overpass over the UP line. With the delay, I was able to get to a spot on the north side of the line. From here, I could photograph the trains on the TRANSCON as they passed over the UP’s CP Vaughn. There were a lot of eastbound trains hung-up behind the manifest freight, so I took lots of photos in a short time.

About that time, my luck (as opposed to NVNTRAK luck) interposed. The batteries for my camera died, which was when the UP manifest freight came through the “tunnel.” Sorry, Bobby, I missed the engines, but I was able to coax the camera into some shots of the rear of the train. The UP paused for a crew change and I set up to photograph it at a grade crossing. But, after 45 minutes of flashing lights and gates down at the crossing, and full dark, I had to give up and head back to Albuquerque. Still, in about 2 hours, I photographed 10 trains and saw another 3 while waiting for that UP freight to move.