The stunning photo on pages 54-55 taken at Cienega Creek in Vail AZ is missing some interesting information in the caption. Namely, the westbound freight is on the high line ex-El Paso & Southwestern, which in 1912 built through to Tucson from southern Arizona in competition with the Southern Pacific original transcon from 1880, which is the line snaking along the creek in the photo. The ex-SP is used for most eastbounds. SP leased the EP&SW in 1924. Obviously the EP&SW was built to higher standards with more modern engineering and capital.
(Also as my wife pointed out, these are not flowers on the cactii, they are fruits, flowering is long over.)
Your reference to the stunning Cienega Creek, Arizona bridge photo in the June 2025 TRAINS has got me wondering and curious. It has been my experience the bridge is difficult to photograph. Either the lighting is wrong or the angle of view is not pleasing. Maybe the photographer worked magic for obviously you were dazzled by it.
I’ve been to that classic bridge and photographed from both sides, but I didn’t wander as far from the highway (Marsh Station Rd., old US80, visible in the background is the historic Cienega Creek highway bridge). It’s easy walking, in fact the Arizona trail goes under the bridge on the east side (left in the foto), and the ground is pretty open among the cactii. As for the angle, the bridge is prety much E-W so at noontime the sun is behind you from the highway side. This photographer was on the north side so facing south. How he did his “magic” I don’t know. He got a day with blue sky and some few clouds.
There is a small parking area on the SW side of the bridge.
If I’m not mistaken a number of years ago one of the TRAINS Magazine correspondents had a photo of the bridge with an eastbound train on it in a Union Pacific calendar.
The alignment of the bridge is actually on a southwest to northeast basis, as seen in the aerial link below:
It is looked forward to seeing the bridge in the June 2025 issue of TRAINS Magazine to see how the photographer actually dealt with the lighting at the bridge.
I might mention as a warning the safety factor. As I recall the paved roads by the bridge are all very, very narrow, and one would NOT want to be on the roadway bridging if two cars were passing! A word to the wise …
Correct, old US80 over the bridge is very narrow. It was an early civil engineering feat and recognized as so with a historic marker. But not build to the width it would be today. Very little traffic is on this road, since I-10 replaced US80. But you are correct, take caution.
Correct also that the alignment is SW-NE, I should have been more specific. The photo is looking E, I think.
You have to scroll a bit to the east to get to the actual bridge in question, at least on an iPhone. You will be very amused to see how Google Earth has rendered that bridge!
I just found another photo taken by the same photographer, Cayden Smith, and posted on flickr of the Vali, AZ bridge using a drone. Nice over/under shot.
Thanks for the posted photos, everyone. Some photographers have imaginative eyes for sure.
While I’ve been to the Cienega Creek site a number of times, that area can’t compare to my turf, Cajon Pass! Sometimes westbounds on the east slope are totally logjammed for hours and hours, even with two and three tracks. The Cienega Creek line even when it is being single tracked for whatever reason is basically fluid.
