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Santa Fe Southern Railway shuts down
what a shane, it’s like now it’s just BN again …No SF
Very sorry to hear about this, hope things work out for them. Ride the trains while you can folks; you never know how long they’re gonna be there.
Still…BNSF needs to remember the trucker is the enemy not the shortline.
Moments like this it would appear the ex-BN side of BNSF is running the show. ATSF always wanted to work with shippers and complimentary carriers. Seems ridiculous that mighty BNSF would need to work so deceitfully to drive out this tiny shortline. It is a shame for everyone involved, including the history of the ATSF.
Sorry to see you close down (for short time I hope). My Santa Fe Southern T-shirt is now a collectible. Will be out to see you if I ever make it back to NM.
That really sucks. I suppose Bunsniff wants to help along the closure of the Glorieta Sub. Also Bunsniff killed the Mc Cloud River R.R. in Northern California the same way.
He sounds like BNSF did it to eliminate competition, but there is no competition unless BNSF is delivering to a truck transloader somewhere nearby. The only reason I can see for BNSF to want to eliminate this business is that it’s too small for them. They might have even been losing money running a freight crew out to Lamy just to interchange a few cars.
My suggestion is that Santa Fe Southern try to get the freight rights for the whole route, at least down to Albuquerque.
Why not get the state to allow Santa Fe Southern to use the mainline to get to a connection. There’s only one other train each way a day, after all.
I do not agree with the comparison offered in one comment with regard to the closing of the McCloud Railway. The final nail was the closing of the interchange at Lookout Junction, but the real damage was done by the UP/SP merger whereby BN obtained trackage rights into Reno. Prior to that a significant quantity of paper products were delivered thru Lookout Junction for the McCloud to transport to a warehouse and truck loadout in the McCloud yard. Much of that truck traffic headed over to Reno. That was replaced, of course, by a transload in Reno.
Hope the Santa Fe Southern can find a creative way to survive.
It’s a shame, really sad since this is where we got the SF in AT&SF and BNSF. That being said, however, check out the line on Google Maps satilite view. I done that on a boring evening not to long ago, and there is hardly a business on the line that uses rail. Like it or not, rail is a volume business, and a carload of beer every now and then won’t cover the bills…
Its too bad, i have done a cab and caboose ride on the SF&S, my Fathers home is a few hundred yards from the tracks in El-Dorado near Lamy, hope they get things going again when i visit
Perhaps most of these comments should be forwarded to Warren Buffett – he probably is not aware of the Santa Fe Southern Railway’s plight, and possibly he would not be in favor of its demise.
Sad NM hardly has any railroads left ,I would be shock if the State would help .
Besides enduring our current recession, SFS’s dwindling freight business always suffered from lack of aggressive promotion, then lost regular, weekly carloads of CO-brewed Budweiser beer to its lineside SF regional distributor: BNSF ended direct Raton line freights from Denver, depriving date-sensitive delivery to SFS, now trucked in.
SFS has one engineer/mechanic trying to keep its two wheezy old Geeps going.
Owner SF city govt tore out a runaround switch, threw SFS out of the landmark ATSF depot to install a cheesy “visitor center” to wow depot’s now-sole user Rail Runner’s commuters.
A SF restaurant that could share its handy Railyard parking lot with SFS hostilely refuses to do so due to local politics.
In isolated destination Lamy, county permit shenanigans closed a restaurant in a trucked-in ACL dining car.
Lamy’s longstanding eatery/bar, the historic Legal Tender, even after complete renovation, has never enjoyed continuous patronage. Now it’s open, now it’s not.
SFS needs your patronage and prayers.
Hopefully they will talk to WATCO Companies about a takeover of the Trinidad-Albuquerque line and the SF&S. They are a growing, market oriented, experienced shortline railroad owner. They could develope and promote the frieght side of the business and SF&S could do the same for the passenger/excursion side. I don’t know how well steam engines would be greeted in Santa Fe as clean air is one of the area’s big draws. Maybe electric/interurban would help the Santa Fe-Lamy line. Best of both worlds…restored Electric engines/interurban cars and green energy power to boot. My experience watching WATCO is that they would probably be willing and are deffinitely able to do this.