Western Railroad Discussion > Belen New Mexico area Trip 9/24 - 9/27

I took my annual sojourn west last week, this time to the Belen, NM area.  Flying out via Chicago, the connection to Albuquerque arrived mid-afternoon, with just a few hours delay (no surprise there from American, I was actually pleased it was only a couple hours!)

My first stop was south of Albuquerque at Isleta, where I set up to catch Amtrak 3 branching off to the Glorieta Sub which it uses to catch the BNSF transcon (Gallup Sub a few miles to the west).   While waiting on the Southwest Chief, New Mexico Rail Runner train 516 came pushing north, which gave me a bonus shot.

After 3 passed, I had a few hours of daylight before checking into my hotel in Belen for the evening, so I headed west of Los Lunas looking for a spot on the Gallup Sub, and found a good spot at Rio Puerco at the landfill road to park and wait on the traffic to flow.  As most of you from the southwest know, the trains are plentiful, and I shot 5 trains there (and just missed 2) in a couple hours, including this westbound manifest which had a running meet with an eastbound intermodal train (my first two BNSF trains of the trip.) 



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/25 20:08 by sscannella.

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First up here are the DPUs in the westbound freight above, including this smoker (5039).

I started both Thursday and Friday morning at Belen Jct, and one of the first eastbounds that come into the yard and fueling racks was this eastbound Z train with one of the "warbonnets" - 778 - in the middle of the power.

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Two more from Thursday morning included the Y-BELABQ transfer with this pair, then what I think was a Q train with a CP unit leading.

On Friday morning, a Rail Runner had just pulled into the station while the transfer job was coming back down into the yard.

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Also from Friday morning, what I later saw identified as Q-LACNYC came into the yard with on of BNSF's 25th anniversary units.

Both Thursday and Friday I moved east late morning toward Abo Canyon, but made extended stops at what I saw identified as BEEVER at the new secondary fueling facility at Rt. 47.   This big 4 X 3 stack train was of interest....

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...as it had a KCS unit leading the middle three DPUs.

On Friday, this westbound manifest had the "golden swoosh" unit - 7695 - as the rear DPU and fortunately it was nose out.

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Another Friday manifest of interest (at least to me) was this 3 X 1 X 1 job which pulled out of one of the fuel facility sidings.  I had seen one of these 3 X 1 X 1 monsters in Flagstaff 2 years ago.    I wonder how many BNSF runs like this, and if possibly this was the same symbolled train?  Also of note was the westbound grain train in the distance.  I saw multiple rolling meets both days in the few hours I was at this location.  In fact I also found it interesting that you could see an eastbound off in the distance down the straight-away making its way into the canyon, while another eastbound was coming through the crossing.    This definitely isn't the tree-shrouded eastern lines that I'm so used to.  

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As I noted, I made it out to the east end of Abo Canyon to the US Rt 60 overpass, these first two are from Thursday of an eastbound stack train leaving the canyon, then a westbound manifest with a pair of Ferromex units third and forth in the power, about to pass under the highway bridge and enter the canyon.

The third one here is from Friday of another stack train heading east.....

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...about to be passed by a westbound manifest in another one of the numerous rolling meets that I witnessed.   And lucky for me, the manifest had a rear DPU, which was nose out, and made this view heading into the canyon possible.

I travelled east from here on Thursday, out through Maintainair and Willard, following the Clovis Sub out to the salt lakes around Silio, and actually went up to a location called Lucy on some maps I saw.    I saw several trains, along the way, and stopped to photograph this short inermodal train with some wildflowers in the foreground of the scene.

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Starting back toward Belen on Thursday, I encountered several eastbound trains on the Clovis Sub, and decided to stop east of Willard at the west end of this big nearly horseshoe curve.  It was a bit of a wait, but I finally got this westbound 3 X 1 grain train on the curve.   In the first pic, you can barely make out the DPU above the horn of the lead unit.

I'll jump forward to Saturday morning...my flight back east was at 3:00 pm, so I had a few hours in the morning to use.  Unfortunately a cloud deck had moved in Friday evening, even bringing some light showers Saturday morning.  The Eastbound Amtrak Southwest Chief was nearly on time, so I headed back to Rio Puerco west of Los Lunas to try to catch it.  A empty grain train had stopped waiting on #4 to cross over before taking the Glorieta Sub a few mile to the east into Albuquerque. 

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Three shots of #4, first at Rio Puerco, then on the Glorieta Sub from the Rt. 6 overpass near Los Lunas.   Obviously the lighting could have been better, but you take what you can get when you're away from home and on a tight timetable. 

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These last two pics are of the last train I photographed on the trip, at Rio Puerto heading west toward Gallup, Arizona, and California.

The first of 4 videos is posted here if the first meet between the east bound intermodal and westbound manifest on Wednesday afternoon at Rio Puerto.

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The next video is of the grain train on the big curve west of Willard from Thursday, followed by the Abo Canyon meet from Friday, and lastly, the eastbound Southwest Chief Saturday morning.

All in all, for this easterner, I thought this was a highly successful trip.  I got to do a little bit of exploring around Belen while on vacation with my wife last year (mainly visited Santa Fe).  That kind of started the ball rolling for this trip this year.   I photographed close to 50 trains in what amounted to three days of trackside, and probably didn't shoot but saw or heard that many more.  The breakdown was 23 intermodals (not being overly familiar with the operations, I have a hard tome distinguishing between Z, Q, and S intermodal trains), 10 mainifests, 2 loaded & two 2 grain, 1 loaded and 1 empty coal, either an empty ethanol or oil train, a ballast train, the transfer local (twice), 3 Amtraks, and 2 Rail Runners. 



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/02/25 18:04 by sscannella.

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Sam,

Wow! You killed a zillion bits and bytes! Great stuff, certainly not the lush Lackawanna and Susquehanna Valleys you usually shoot.
I've only been as far west as Texas Hill Country which has much more but quite sparse vegetation compared to Pennsylvania.
As a really old fart and not inclined to step foot in an airliner I suspect I'll never see the Southwest. Not afraid to fly, just don't want to deal with all the B.S. that is required to get on a plane. My 2 sisters moved to the Phoenix many years ago. If I ever get motivated to deal with Amtrak perhaps I'll visit my surviving sister and other family members that for some reason find living in an oven acceptable!

Thanks for a great post and pixel execution.
Gonut

What a great trip-lots of variety of locations and trains. Thanks for sharing!

BB

Nice bunch, Belen area never disappoints. The ABQ transfer might be the most interesting train you'll see out there...

JG

Thanks for the great report, excellent pic and video work! I stumbled across that CP leader Friday morning here in SoCal.

Rail wise Albuquerque is an interesting place. There's very little industrial and the rail traffic is inbound IM, autos, and petroleum
plus some lumber. Catching the transfer was a real plus. You've got a really nice selection of shots and I can see why someone
from out of the area would come to chase. More than once on TO the best local shots of an area have come from a visitation
trip! The cool local catch used to be the Coors facility up off Alexander which took a spot which resembled an old MR switching
puzzle. That's Premier Distribution now and I don't think they use rail anymore, ah progress.

Out 

Great bunch of images! You really can't go wrong in this area as the trains are normally plentiful with beautiful New Mexico senery in the background. Thanks for sharing the fruits of your labor!

Kim Heusel



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 10/04/25 06:54 by KimHeusel.

Great collection of photos. You made good use of your trip.
John

Manifest have units assigned based upon tonnage, so number and placement varies day-to-day.  On the Southern Transcon through Belen, the H-KCKBAR /H-BARKCK manifests late have been the most regular to have a configuration with 1 mid-train and 1 rear DPU.

sscannella Wrote:
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> Another Friday manifest of interest (at least to
> me) was this 3 X 1 X 1 job which pulled out of one
> of the fuel facility sidings.  I had seen one of
> these 3 X 1 X 1 monsters in Flagstaff 2 years
> ago.    I wonder how many BNSF runs like this,
> and if possibly this was the same symbolled
> train?  

Ted Ferkenhoff
Flagstaff, AZ