Western Railroad Discussion > Albuquerque to Dallies, New Mexico

I have ridden Amtrak's Southwest Chief many times both eastbound and westbound between Chicago and Los Angeles. The stretch of Burlington Northern Santa Fe trackage between Albuquerque and "The Dallies", New Mexico is fast track in open desert. I have never seen any trains on said trackage until we reached the "Transcon" at The Dallies. Does anything else besides the two Amtrak trains run on that line? Thanks for any answers.

SantaFeRuss

SantaFeRuss Wrote:
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> I have ridden Amtrak's Southwest Chief many times
> both eastbound and westbound between Chicago and
> Los Angeles. The stretch of Burlington Northern
> Santa Fe trackage between Albuquerque and "The
> Dallies", New Mexico is fast track in open desert.
> I have never seen any trains on said trackage
> until we reached the "Transcon" at The Dallies.
> Does anything else besides the two Amtrak trains
> run on that line? Thanks for any answers.
>
> SantaFeRuss

"The Dallies"? It is just Dalies, NM. Occasional freight movements. Amtrak has been the only movement between Isleta and Dalies as of recent,
however, the D PHXBEL1 has gone that route recently when it is running behind schedule. The D PHXBEL1 is usually 12 light units that depart
PHX around mid morning on Monday and is used for the Z ABQWSP9 on Tuesday morning. It normally goes to Belen for servicing, and the transfer job
will bring them up to ABQ. But, when behind schedule, they go straight to ABQ. Also, there are some El Paso to Los Angeles trains that run to
ABQ, run the power around, and then head west after an air test, but I'm not sure this happens much anymore. It was due to union agreements,
but that might have changed. There are also occasional baretable trains from ABQ to LAC or SBD that use that trackage.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/12 20:41 by qnyla.

once in a while if soemone got wadded up on the transcon, they will reroute some of the shorter, hotter Z train traffic this way through ABQ and on to Raton, La Junta and Dodge City. Not worth it for anything bigger to try to make it over Raton Pass.

There are no more crew bases over the Raton and Glorieta Subs. to do this, won't ever happen again. All ABQ and Las Vegas, NM crews have been moved to Belen.
It created quite a problem for the current Belen engineer pool, they weren't that receptive of their "union brothers".



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/05/12 22:06 by qnyla.

That's sad to hear!

Even when freights ran that way, you wouldn't likely have seen any from Amtrak between Albuquerque and Dalies for the simple reason that the only siding in that stretch is the ridiculously short 2486 foot Isleta siding. I did see the northbound local from Belen waiting at the junction once from the rear of Tr.4.

Dalies, NM (not to be confused with The Dalles, OR) was named for Paul B. Dalies, a businessman who owned the Becker-Dalies Co. store in Belen along with partner John Becker, according to The Place Names of New Mexico. Their influence was such that when the Belen Cutoff was built, Becker got his name on the station at the first water tank east of Belen, and Dalies the first tank west of there.

There used to be an agreement that all trains that ran down the "horny toad" had to be inspected and air tested by
Albuquereque carmen. I have seen several "V" trains run straight to Belen, and vice versa. There must have been a change
in the agreements, or all prior rights people are gone. The prior rights outside of the coastlines ended at Dalies, when the
cut off was built, they determined that Belen was the terminal, not ABQ. As it stands, ABQ is covered by El Paso seniority
and Belen is Clovis. How they allowed the Raton and Las Vegas crewman, which should have went to Colorado, to become
Belen and coastline seniority is beyond me?

One shot deal probably. When the UP shut down the White River Div or MNA as its now known, they gave crews at Carthage and Cotter a one shot move to any seniority district on the system. Some went on reserve boards, but other scattered thought the system although most went to KC and Jeff City Same was true when the MKT line between Parsons and Sedalia was shut down, MKT Engs at Franklin were dove tailed into various seniority rosters. Caused a lot of hard feelings for a while , but if you were in their shoes; what would you do??

SantaFeRuss Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> I have ridden Amtrak's Southwest Chief many times
> both eastbound and westbound between Chicago and
> Los Angeles. The stretch of Burlington Northern
> Santa Fe trackage between Albuquerque and "The
> Dallies", New Mexico is fast track in open desert.
> I have never seen any trains on said trackage
> until we reached the "Transcon" at The Dallies.
> Does anything else besides the two Amtrak trains
> run on that line? Thanks for any answers.
>
> SantaFeRuss

NMRX dispatches the line from Lamy to Belen. BNSF runs on average 3 transfer jobs a day between Albuquerque and Belen and 1 industry job south of Albuquerque(usually in the morning). NMRX of course has their commuter service to Belen (in which some trains were replaced by busses last year) and Amtrak. Between Isleta and Dalies, BNSF does not operate any trains, only Amtrak operates on this track. BNSF crews are no longer qualified on this segment.

As a (former) NMRX dispatcher I tried to have BNSF trains use the BNSF siding at Isleta, but was unable two becasue BNSF prohibits freight operations on this segment, and as a result crews have lost their qualification on this segment.

TS2010 Wrote:
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>
>
> NMRX dispatches the line from Lamy to Belen. BNSF
> runs on average 3 transfer jobs a day between
> Albuquerque and Belen and 1 industry job south of
> Albuquerque(usually in the morning). NMRX of
> course has their commuter service to Belen (in
> which some trains were replaced by busses last
> year) and Amtrak. Between Isleta and Dalies, BNSF
> does not operate any trains, only Amtrak operates
> on this track. BNSF crews are no longer qualified
> on this segment.
>
Wrong, the light engines are met by the road foreman at Dalies, who "pilots" the WINBEL crew to ABQ. And recently, the other way around for the baretables,
the road foreman rides the ABQ to Dalies segment. They may no longer be qualified, but the trains will still run as needed.

> As a (former) NMRX dispatcher I tried to have BNSF
> trains use the BNSF siding at Isleta, but was
> unable two becasue BNSF prohibits freight
> operations on this segment, and as a result crews
> have lost their qualification on this segment.

As a fun aside. While on a vacation I was riding on the Railrunner Commuter train from Belen to ABQ and saw Amtrak 4 off to the left waiting for us to roll by where the two lines converge. He was early and we were on time so 4 had to wait and follow us in to ABQ.

Phil Blommendahl
Getzville, NY