Railroads in New Mexico

Compiled from articles previously published in New Mexico magazine from 1964-1980.

These articles provide the color and the character of the effect of the railroads upon New Mexico, and discusses the colorful characters associated with out Territorial past. With period and recent photos of facilities and equipment.

Long the handbook on the subject!

This is a railroad lover's book. The steel, steam, and dreams of a century of railroading in New Mexico are captured in 200 photographs and a crisp text. From a bygone era of narrow-gauge lines to today's Amtrak service, this book covers both the short lines and the branches feeding to main lines of major railroad systems.

New Mexico, isolated until 1878 when the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railroad laid the first span of track in the territory, in just thirty months had over 1,000 miles of rail line. Soon trains of freight and passenger cars, marvel of the industrial age, crisscrossed the territory delivering eastern fashion, settlers, and tourists and hauling away lumber, coal, silver, and cattle.

The great railroad-building era in New Mexico ended with World War I, when eleven common carriers operated 3,000 miles of track. The subsequent history of New Mexico railroads is one of persistent struggle, slow eclipse, and corporate consolidation. But as this volume reminds us, steel rails, roaring engines, and clattering cars will always be a part of New Mexico's heritage. - from the book jacket

In the vast expanse of territorial New Mexico, railroads had a striking impact. Many cities, among them Carlsbad, Raton, Clovis, and Gallup, were founded as railroad stops. Architect Marci Riskin explores the history of railroad depots and other structures--everything but the trains themselves--that make up New Mexico's railway legacy.

To begin the examination, Riskin includes a brief history of railroad development in New Mexico, a description of the architectural features of the state's railroad buildings, and an overview of how railroads work. This background will help answer questions that may arise on a visit to a rail-yard: What is that strangely shaped train car carrying? How is that twisted piece of metal used? Why are the bricks on the platform stamped with the single word Coffeyville?

The bulk of the book is an account of what is left of the state's railroad heritage, organized geographically within each rail system: the Santa Fe system from Raton to Silver City, the Denver & Rio Grande, the Colorado & Southern, the Southern Pacific, and the El Paso and Northeastern, among others. - from the book jacket

The author also did a 1996 study of railroad depots in New Mexico, commissioned by the New Mexico Dept. of Highway and Transportation.

By the late 1800s, the major mode of transportation for travelers to the Southwest was by rail. In 1878, the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway Company (AT&SF) became the first railroad to enter New Mexico, and by the late 1890s it controlled more than half of the track-miles in the Territory. The company wielded tremendous power in New Mexico, and soon made tourism an important facet of its financial enterprise.

All Aboard for Santa Fe focuses on the AT&SF's marketing efforts to highlight Santa Fe as an ideal tourism destination. The company marketed the healthful benefits of the area's dry desert air, a strong selling point for eastern city-dwelling tuberculosis sufferers. AT&SF also joined forces with the Fred Harvey Company, owner of numerous hotels and restaurants along the rail line, to promote Santa Fe. Together, they developed materials emphasizing Santa Fe's Indian and Hispanic cultures, promoting artists from the area's art colonies, and created the Indian Detours sightseeing tours.

All Aboard for Santa Fe is a comprehensive study of AT&SF's early involvement in the establishment of western tourism and the mystique of Santa Fe. - from the book jacket

History of Santa Fe and the Santa Fe railway system -- How the AT&SF marketed Santa Fe into the early 1920s -- The promotion of Santa Fe by the Harvey Company and the AT&SF into the 1930s -- Promoting Santa Fe the AT&SF way, then and now -- The town down the tracks : Santa Fe's rival, Albuquerque -- The AT&SF's lingering effects on tourism in modern day Santa Fe.

Tice, as a young man, helped survey the route of one of the first railroads through New Mexico and went on to work for the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway system for more than fifty years. Over the years, he served as telegraph operator, stationmaster, and superintendent for the system.

These reminiscences, originally serialized in the Santa Fe magazine in 1932, give the flavor of New Mexico in the 1880s just as the railroads were opening up the territory, and reveal the challenges inherent in building the rail lines.

A small, personable book, well worth a read.

"While in Santa Fe we lived in the old adobe La Fonda tavern, 'The End of the Trail.' One evening as I sat in the old Plaza, where the first caravans had reached their journey's end almost sixty years before, I looked across at the old hotel and wondered what volume of tales it walls could tell if they had the power of speech. I also thought how different they would be from the 'Tales of a Wayside Inn' as recounted to us in rhyme by Longfellow. ... No poetry in old La Fonda, but trafficking, gambling, liquor and blood both flowing freely, riotous days and violent nights." - pg. 9

Dozens of photos, black & white and color, augment the informative text.

The railroads were a crucial element in the development of the Wild West, as they snaked their way across vast prairies, deserts and cavernous canyons, over rushing rivers and the formidable Rocky and Sierra Nevada Mountains, and through virgin forests. Once chilled steel rails spanned the continent, the transportation of resources, goods, mail and settlers -- drawn by the lure of lands, gold, and adventure -- began changing the face of the West. The disappearance of the magnificent herds of buffalo went hand in hand with the fate of the native Indian. The transportation of cattle, including the hardy Texas Longhorn, to rich eastern markets contributed to the rise of the cowboy. But corruption accompanied the power of the railroad monopolies, portending gloom before the rails had even reached their heyday.

The Golden Age of railroading in the beginning of the twentieth century was a time of gleaming steam locomotives chuffing up mountain grades, observation cars with open platforms ferrying politicians on whistle-stop campaigns, dome cars with picture windows gliding through spectacular scenic vistas, and luxurious Pullman cars with mahogany woodwork, chandeliers, and sumptuous meals served on silver by candlelight.

From Santa Fe's Super Chief, the first diesel-powered, all Pullman streamliner, to Great Northern's Empire Builder, with exposed beams and seats covered in pinto leather, to Union Pacific's freight-carrying Big Boys, the trains of the West have been the stuff of dreams. Even after their decline, with the rise of the highway and the passenger jet, western railroads continue today to grow and change. Experimenting, merging, using innovative technology and computerized systems, these railroads survive and prosper as a testament to the spirit of the West. - from the book jacket

At the turn of the century, the Santa Fe Railway set out on a massive campaign to lure travelers into its southwestern territory, that remarkable desert landscape (including the Grand Canyon) then populated by little else than cactus, lizards, and a few scattered Indian tribes. But the railroad commissioned painters and photographers to present this remote region in a picturesque fashion, capitalizing on the dramatic scenery and idealizing the Indian.

To accommodate travelers, the railroad set up deluxe guided tours and went into business with the Fred Harvey Company. Soon hordes of pretty, crisply dressed "Harvey Girls" were serving thousands of new and enthusiastic tourists. Exploiting a romantic image of the Indian, the railroad's advertising used paintings and hand-colored lantern slides in calendars, brochures, magazines, posters, and lectures that summoned Americans to their rich heritage and the beautiful lands of the West.

Now, some 75 years later, the visual record of these early sales promotions forms an extraordinary document of Indian life and the spectacular Arizona/New Mexico desert along with views of California. More than 110 hand-colored photographs are reproduced in this stunning book, along with a gallery of advertising art and original paintings in full color, two maps, and a selection of archival black-and-white photographs.