If You Get Tired of Watching Trains at Dalies, New Mexico

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The Southwest is a marvelous area of the country to hunt for old abandoned railroad right of way. In the Northwest, where I live, old roadbeds get swallowed up by vegetation very quickly. There are some places along the Santa Fe in Arizona and New Mexico, where it almost looks like a tie gang could come in and start work. The map above shows the line between Dalies and Albuquerque, just north of Dalies. A lot of the old right of way can be seen from Hwy 6. Santa Fe was very aggressive  in the early 20th Century in reducing curvature and grades, oftten building a parallel lower gradient line for the uphill direction. An example of this can be seen just west of Dalies, where the EB and WB mains are seperated by a considerable distance.

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The map above shows the two Santa Fe mains near Rio Puerco (Pig River.)






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Perhaps the Holy Grail of abandoned ATSF right of way is the old mainline grade out of Ash Fork, Arizona. I think that a hike along these serpentine curves would be good for my soul.

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A close look shows previous alignments on the old line.