Will the BNSF put the Amtrak Southwest Chief train 3&4 on the Southern Route, where the Southern Route is alot Faster Route than Raton Pass.
One downside about this re-route, if it goes through, would be that Boy Scouts would no longer get their first exposures to trains and train travel, as the route would swing far to the south of Raton NM, the stop for Philmont Scout Ranch. I think there were some rumors about the State of NM keeping the line intact, and using it for the Road Runner Commuter Rail, and maintaining the line at FRA Class 4 (59 mph passenger) status.
The State of NM don’t Maintain track like the BNSF does and the Boy Scouts could get off at a New Stop on the Southern Route and take School Bus to Camp?
I doubt if Amtrak would reroute the Southwest Chief over the Transcon because it would leave Albuquerque, New Mexico’s largest city, not only without its long distance passenger rail service, but a good source of traffic.
Class 4 track allows passenger trains a top speed of 79 mph
CRboy: Your initial premise is screwed-up. Raton Pass is 3 hours faster and one crew district (used to be two) less then going on the TRANSCON/BELEN Cutoff. The difference is tonnage and grade (and only one industry between Trinidad and Lamy)
AMTRAK will continue the present route and stay off the transcon Newton-Dalies. La Junta to Trinidad will still see plenty of freight trains. Slowly, but surely, the inferior (as in crooked and slow) C&S line between Pueblo and Trinidad (via Walsenburg) will eventually go to the commuter people, but not anytime soon. (The"visionaries" want El Paso to Cheyenne (possibly Casper) in one integrated system.)Colorado is in no financial shape to accomodate this and is currently inept on anything rail (they are rubber tired slaves). NM is already on shaky ground and BNSF is quite justified in trying to avoid running over their maintenance.
I can’t speak to the State of NM’s maintenance capabilities, but the Boy Scouts see Philmont as their premier camp, the height of the Scouting experience, and they already have to face an hour long bus ride just to get to and from Raton. Going via the southern route would legnthen the bus ride to the point that many Scout troops will refuse to consider going by train, and go by bus for their entire trip.
It is possible to include ABQ on the Southwest Chief while still taking the Belen Route. It just involves some backtracking and a wye maneuver. This was done when the Chief was rerouted due to heavy snows this winter, and a few other times it has taken the southern route.
I would hate to see a permanent move though as Raton is one of the scenery highlights of the route.
But I think it is foolish for BNSF to completely relinquish Raton. When there are serious derailments on the southern route, it makes sense to reroute trains over Raton, even if some have to be cut up in order to make the grades. I hope they still have trackage rights.
You know, it might end up being like the tracks in Southern California. Metrolink actually owns much of the tracks in SoCal. But BNSF still runs their trains on these tracks. Metrolink is in charge of maintenance and dispatching on the San Diego sub, while BNSF still handles maintenace and dispatching on the San Bernardino sub…however Metrolink owns the tracks on both (up to San Bernardino). So NM owns the Raton track, will likely handle maintenance (or contract it out to BNSF), and perhaps one day handle dispatching over the route.
And on the class 4 thing…I’m not sure of the current status, but some portions of the Raton route were 90mph territory. In fact there where train control (ATS in this case) semaphores, possibly the only ones in the country. I know Rail Runner has a top speed of 79mph, so the ATS and 90mph may have been removed recently.
For the time being, the rr stance on 3&4 is to keep operating via Raton as rerouting through Belen and trying to get in & out of that cluster hole would be creating a scheduling nightmare. The amount of freight over the Raton Sub does continue to be lite. The xtra bd @ Albuquerque only calls for four condrs, the pool bd just two (and you have to have close to 40 yrs to hold the pool). Raton calls for about six or seven xtra bd condrs. A freind of mine works bd 6 up there and states that its not uncommon for him to sit in between calls for up to four or five days while still drawing bd guarantee.Not a bad way of life.
The Southern Route Amtrak would use less Engines about 2 engines instead of 3 or 4 engines because it almost a flat route without any Mountains to deal with.[2c]
The Southwest Chief is currently operating with only 2 P42s (elephant style too).
Long-distance AMTK trains are only 9-10 cars long now; no need for more than 2 engines; they used 3 or 4 when the train was still hauling mail and express. They still use 3 a lot, though.
The trainmaster @ Raton, who is actually from LaJunta, is taking a trainmaster position in Gallup sometime in June. From a routing standpoint, the rr still may have a second northern route and it will be interesting to see if it is ever used. The BNSF was granted rights over the UP from Vaughn to Hutchinson and I believe this may have extended up to Topeka but don’t quote me on that. However, these trackage rights have never been used since granted a decade ago. Back in 2003, there was serious talk on routing traffic west of Hutch on the UP but it died off quickly. This would have created a 216 mile Newton-Liberal crew district. Will be interesting to see if this talk starts up again.
A check of the working boards the other day was quite shocking–Raton xtrbd 6 is full w/6 condrs, but the pool turn now only holds two. In the past it has been around five or six. On the other end of the line in ABQ, the condr xtrbd only calls for one person! Some traffic is still moving as a ZABQWSP and a VABQKCK were both called on the same day last wk. It will be interesting to see what hapens w/the engrs once the trains stop. I may be wrong, but I think Raton engrs are on the same roster as Clovis guys?.They will have to mark up there if thats the case. ABQ guys are on the same district w/El Paso but perhaps something can be worked out to allow them to go to Belen if they so wish since that is only 30 miles from ABQ compared to a three hr drive to ELP. It is sad to see one of the oldest segments of the former SF in its last breath of life. So long Raton Pass!