My railroad is fashioned in the northern part on New Mexico in the late 1950’s. I am running all SantaFe equipment. My question is. Did any other railroad ( UP,SP, Rio Grande etc) run trains on these tracks during that period? I would love to get another railroad on those tracks.
You probably know about the Joint Line in Colorado between Denver and Colorado Springs shared by ATSF and others.
I model the Houston area where Santa Fe lines south of Houston were also used by Burlington, Rock Island and Missouri Pacific, and an East Texas area where Kirby Lumber Company logging trams ran by trackage rights over a few miles of ATSF.
Don’t know of any shared trackage in northern New Mexico though…
Hello “hwolf,”
Sorry, there were no other railroads operating on Santa Fe lines in northern New Mexico in the 1950s. There was one train each way every day on the Southern Route, from Clovis through Belen and up to Albuquerque on west, that operated with run-through St. Louis-San Francisco (Frisco) power. This was the QLA (Quanah-Los Angeles) train westbound and the CTX (California-Texas Freight) train eastbound. When the run-through operation began in 1958 or '59, the Frisco power used was F units, but by 1960 the Frisco had acquired some high-hood U25B road swichers and they were often assigned to these runs. The purpose of these trains was to offer a direct connection between the Memphis, Tenn., gateway and Southern California.
So long,
Andy
You say that everything you have is ATSF…
While no other company running on ATSF tracks means that all the locos and cabooses will be ATSF absolutley any car in Interchange service with a lod to carry through or to/from your territory would appear from time to time. If it’s a boxcar you don’t need to know what’s in it, where its going to/from or anything… all it needs to do is meet interchange standards and fit your period.
[8D]
Thisis the dilema we all face. Do I stay absolutely, positively as realistic as possible and model the ATSF or do I back off some and do something else. I model the PRR and everything I do PRR is as good as I can make it to conform to their standards but I also model the Allegheny Railroad that has trackage rights on my section. That lets me run a Big Boy, GS4, Vgn EL3A, and several other engines labled ARR that I wouldn’t otherwise be able to do. Justify a short line that uses a mile of track on the ASTF and have at it. When your dysfunctional ATSF friends come over and insist you are not prototypical you can either not run the stuff then or tell them it is your railroad. This is not a put down of ATSF modelers it is a function of the hobby that certain people want everything their way or think they know it all. I have the same problem with the PRR.
Get a copy of “New Mexico’s Railroads,” by David F. Myrick, University of New Mexico Press. NM has a rich heritage of coal and lumber short-lines - some of which operated into the 1940’s and 1950’s. Page 215 show a picture of a New Mexico Timber Company switcher photographed in Bernalillo in 1959. Some of these operations could add variety to your time frame - if only as derelicts in the back of a scrap yard.
dd
Hi,
Technically, the ATSF tracks were strictly Santa Fe, BUT…
Keep in mind that you could take “modeler’s license” and have another railroad (that passed thru New Mexico) interchange with the ATSF trackage. Also, I am sure there were times when other area RRs used each other’s tracks during times of derailments or washouts or the like. I am an avid ATSF fan, but also love and model the IC, and used the above logic on my own layout. Ha, only the rare “rivetcounter” seems to consider this “wrong”!
ENJOY,
Mobilman44
The SP crossed UNDER the ATSF just west of Vaughn NM. Actually the Santa Fe goes over the SP using very long earth ramps as the ATSF was 2nd road at that location. This was SP’s connection to the Rock Island and on to Chicago, so it saw a fair amount of traffic, and even a passenger train going Chicago to LA. I think there is / was a connecting track, but no interchange.