Western Railroad Discussion > ATK #3 & #4 on the Raton Line

Spent most of last week (January 10th - 14th) on BNSF's Raton Line between Glorieta and Raton, NM. The only trains are Amtrak's daily #3 and #4, with no through or local freight. From my understanding, this has been true for a couple of years. During my time I did not see any BNSF personnel, nor a single freight car of any type. Why would anyone spend time on a line that features only two passenger trains a day (which aren't very attractive). Chock it up to an obsession I've had with the route dating back to when I rode it as a child on AT&SF's #17 and #18 in the summer of 1968. Though there is a dearth of trains, it's a throwback to what post-war right-of-ways once looked like (save for the welded rail). An advantage of only two trains on a very predictable schedule (just call Julie) is that you get to sleep in. I appreciate this benefit more and more every year.

BNSF continues to own, maintain, and dispatch a rail line of over 300 miles for the sole benefit Amtrak. How much longer this can last?

1. Day one was a day of travel to Las Vegas. At around 9.00PM on a cold, partially-full-moon-lit night, the east end of Gise shows green on main and siding. This, and the west end of Rowe, are the only sidings between Glorieta and Raton to feature a dwarf on the siding (there is a dwarf in the yard at Raton). To construct a wide-out would mean additional fill (major cost), so a dwarf instead of a ground signal was installed. When I and the Berkeley Boys passed this spot on a August night in 1981, the mainline signals at Gise were US&S T2 semaphores. Today they are H-5 searchlights, including the dwarf.

2. Next afternoon, January 11, at 1:01:15" PM, and on time, #3, rolls past signal 7832. The signal maintainer has done tree trimming so that there is no interference to the line wires.

3. Perhaps my favorite location on the line is at signal 7481/7482, located between Watrous and Shoemaker near the west mouth of Shoemaker Canyon. The line crosses the Mora River on a 334 foot thru truss span with a 181 foot pile trestle approach. In the far background are the Sangre de Cristo. No place has the look of tranquility more than this area. A one hour late #4 barely beats the shadows at 4:22:00"PM on January 11.

Note: All times recorded with a Hamilton 992B, 10 seconds fast -- compared to Naval Observatory Time, Washington, D.C.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/12 23:21 by BCHellman.

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4. A wide angle of the same train.

5. After spending the night in Raton, a shot of the empty yard in the morning. Last year at about the same time I witnessed a handful of BNSF employees oiling all the switches in the yard. Puzzling given that no trains would be using them.

6. One of Raton's ancient stone buildings. A wonderful little town.

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7. A drawback of the line is that the two passenger trains are generally not chaseable unless the shots are highway-ready, coupled with aggressive driving. This form of taking pictures may have been amusing in the past, but has long fallen out of favor. That said, I made an exception for January 12th's version of #3, which was on time (all #3s were on time for the 5 days I spent along the line). Racing past the east end of Wagon Mound on January 12 at 12:23:21" PM the westward semaphore is still in the process of falling. If you hadn't noticed, the pinnacle is missing on all three signals, a serious aesthetic flaw. Naturally one assumes that thieving railfans did the trick, but this is not true. The Signal Supervisor out of Raton, whose territory ended at the east end of Wagon Mound, removed them on the belief that railfans would eventually commit the deed. Not to deny his logic, but the pinnacles on semaphores (as well as some searchlights) still survive where they have not been removed by the railroad (save for the approach to Chapelle).

8. Because of the natural slow order through Shoemaker Canyon, I was able to set up for a second shot at the often-photographed east end of Watrous. I have so many shots here it's almost a cliche. 12:52:45" (OK, a couple minutes late). By the way, MP 749 (E.E. Watrous) to 750 is a short mile, indicating a line change at some point in the canyon.

9. Not too many left of this sytle.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/12 08:24 by BCHellman.

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10. To finish the day I could not resist another crack at the Mora River crossing, but with a slightly different angle. Though I'm thoroughly pro-semaphore, the Santa Fe's had a major failing in that its standard was black wooden blades unless certain terrain called for white stripes or solid white. Thus, in the background they are not readily visible (of course at cab-level they would be). Contrast this to SP's brilliant red and yellow steel blades, which stand out in any terrain. Believe it or not, Santa Fe's early installation of automatic semaphores, US&S's Style-S, featured red blades. I can imagine sometimes in the Teens, some high official in Topeka probably complained that too much money was being spent on painting blades red, when cheaper black paint would do. For seemingly forever, the railroads believe that you make money by saving money. Shot January 12 at 3:51:23"PM

11. After the passage of all trains for the day, system-at-rest west end Watrous. Siding signals are continuously-lit due to the lack of a track circuit. Love that stick rail.

12. I have a fondness for all things old, including hotels. Even though they don't feature the modern amenities and may not even be the cheapest nor convenient, I can't resist. The El Fidel is a recently restored hotel, but in a town having an over-abundance of hotel/motel rooms, it is hardly patronized. I think I was the only guest on two of the nights. Hardly a profitable operation. I wish them the best.

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13. A plaque to prove that politics has always been a contact sport, with the innocent generally getting hurt. The El Fidel was once known as the Meadows.

14. Las Vegas is from another era. This downtown view could pass for 1950 save for the automobiles and the fact that nobody is walking the sidewalks. Like most downtowns, shoppers have fled to big box stores. Las Vegas has them too.

15 Close-up of the clock.

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16. For the first set of January 13, it was back to Shoemaker Canyon, but this time to the east end and signal 7441 and 7442 for a shot of #3. Though the dry climate is favorable to preservation, eventually time will get to everything. It seems a stiff breeze will snap these blades. By the way, in 1916 Shoemaker Canyon received some of the first automatic signals on the Raton line, but they were not these signals nor this style. I'll explain later.

17. #3 at 12:18:15"PM. From my calculations, Signal 7442 goes to yellow when #3 crosses the west end of Wagon Mound.

18. Slow order through Shoemaker and a stop at Las Vegas allowed me to leap-frog to the east end of Chapelle. 1:09:10"PM. At one time the east end of Chapelle had a cantilever signal bridge.

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The Santa Fe was a late-comer to the world of automatic block signals. Outside of a few isolated installations, it was largely a "dark" railroad. During the late teens and 20's, Santa Fe embarked upon a crash program to signal all its significant main lines. In single track its preference was ABS overlap, where intermediates are staggered. Around the early 1960s (have not nailed the dates completely and at this point I'm speculating) on the Northern District the Santa Fe decided to eliminate nearly every-other siding, lengthen the ones that remained, and redo the signals. Instead of employing the so-called overlap, they were re-wired for Absolute-Permissive-Block (APB) and re-spaced. In a sense, they reconfigured the railroad and the signals as if it were to have CTC installed, but didn't. But the real kicker in this project is that they re-used the semaphore signals, including the concrete Massey bases. The project seems to have been limited to between Dodge City and the east end of Rowe (not including yards and CTC areas).

19. To show the "portability" of a Massey, here are two discarded cases at the west end of Shoemaker.

20. At the west end of Chapelle we see an example of the re-signaling and re-configuring of the siding. Prior to project, only the westward and eastward signal on the main would have been there. The siding would have lead directly into the main. After the project, the siding was constructed with a wide-out and a siding-signal installed. The behavior of the signals at the west end of Chapelle is different than any siding between Dodge City and Rowe save for one other. Since Blanchard siding to the west is closer than standard, there is only one intermediate between Chapelle and Blanchard. At all other locations when a train leaves a siding, the opposite signals at the next siding drop immediately to red. But not here. Let's watch what happens with the approach of #4 starting with the system-at-rest.

21. At 3:18:45" both siding (the one on the left) and main drop to approach. Had Blanchard been normally spaced to about 8 to 10 miles distance, resulting in more than one intermediate, they would have dropped immediately to red. But because there's only one intermediate, it would have been too dangerous. Should two opposing moves leave the siding at the same time, there would be no protection in the middle for at least one train and a disastrous head-on would likely be the outcome. So in effect, these signals are behaving like overlaps. From my calculation #4 has just passed the east end of Sands siding.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 01/21/12 00:32 by BCHellman.

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22. 3:31:40" PM. Siding red. From my calculation #4 as passed either signal 7961/2, the first intermediate west of Blanchard siding, or the battery cut between the two. Essentially a red siding signal in this case tells any train in the siding that unless order to do so, hold in the siding.

23. 3:36:55" PM all red, #4 has departed the east end of Blanchard. 3:40:45" PM OS #4. The only other location to behave similarly is Wagon Mound to Levy.

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Superb!

I love to travel the Raton line.

Awesome narrative, photos and effort. Well done.
JB

Another trait of Santa Fe signaling is that most of it was continuously-lit. The exceptions were semaphores in primary-battery territory, where either commercial power was not available or too expensive. Sometimes in the early 1980's the Santa Fe started to convert to approach-lit (4th District of the LA Division was the first I can remember). Today there are only a handful of areas that feature continuously-lit signals. The Raton line still hangs on.


24 Twilight, east end Blanchard.

25. Searchlight signal with close-up prism suspended in the center. Because the searchlight's beam was narrow and precise, engineers close to the signal in daytime had difficulty viewing the indication. The close-up prism deflected a small angle to the side. The white dot to the side of the signal is not a refraction in the camera, but a star.

26. Another view. East end Blanchard.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/12 21:44 by BCHellman.

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27. Darkness descending on the Raton Line. Blanchard east end.

28 Signal 7931. How much longer will it be lit?

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For the final set, January 14, I eschewed signals (a favorite) in order to photograph the curves at Blanchard. There seems to be some dispute as to the name of these series of reverse curves located at MP 796, but they are sliglty closer to Blanchard than they are Ribera, the other name. There aren't many mainlines that feature over 3% grades. There are just as few that feature 10 degree curves.

29. Number 3 at the top showing the full layout.

30. About to start the top curve. I shot only one freight at this location almost 20 years ago under threatening skies. It was the Denver to Barstow train with cut-in remote helpers. At some point I'll try to find the slide.

31. The top curve, next to I-25. You can't see it, but to the side is the highway rest stop.

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No doubt the requiem will be playing for the Raton line. It won't be long and photos taken in these same places will show downed-pole lines, turned signals, rusty rails and trees growing between the ties. Worst yet, there'll be photos of just ballast. I don't need to describe it, you're all too familiar with this. Not many people would spend 5 days on a line that offered only two ugly passenger trains a day. But, what kind of mayhem would occur if Amtrak would run just ONE detour train on Tennessee pass? Or if you could snap your fingers and bring the Modoc back for one Amtrak detour. I assure you that you would not be alone. Thus, dig it while you can.

32. The next time I would see this train would be on the platform at Winslow, heading home.

33. It's not a 2900 4-8-4 on the Chief, but it is a train. How much longer?



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/20/12 22:03 by BCHellman.

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Not only is there so very little traffic on that line, but the part with the semaphores is a long way from any other active rails, so you really have to be committed to doing it.

I went there in April, I think it was 2002. In three days I saw six freight trains plus the two Amtraks. The freights were an eastbound empty grain, an eastbound empty coal, the Las Vegas local -- they were still doing some team-track business in Las Vegas at the time -- out one day and back the next, and on the last day I was there, both sides of the RoadRailer. It seemed like a lot of time and effort for not much production, but I wanted to get those semaphore signals and I did. I spent the final afternoon of the four-day trip east of Belen and I saw more trains during those seven hours than I had during the previous 72. You gotta want it.

Loved the posting. I would have loved to have spent a few days with you on your trip. Chasing this line is a lot of fun though. Sure it is only Amtrak, but it can be rewarding. You wake up and chase the Westbound, then take a break and then the Eastbound is on its way. When Mason and I did it we had a blast and is one of our best railfan trips.

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

I never thought Raton could look so eerie (pix #5)! The fresh-looking welded rail, the lack of weeds, railroad cars or maintenance of way equipment makes it look like a brand new rail yard. Thanks for the Chapelle story, and for pointing out the idiosyncrasies of signaling.

mapboy

Interesting thread. I've heard of Raton's Semaphores ... nice to see them in action in 2012!

* JB *

Simply exquisite! An enchanting piece of railroad.

SantaFeRuss

A really nice post.