Rock Island U25B 202 left its own rails behind 45 miles ago, in Santa Rosa, New Mexico. Now it’s rolling through the piñons on the Southern Pacific just south of Vaughn, hell bent on an early evening arrival in El Paso with freight 992. Once upon a time this route was Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific’s great transcontinental dhope. But, alas, the hope was interupted by SP predecessor, El Paso & North Eastern; after Rock Island’s 1980 collapse in bankruptcy, the entire Kansas City-El Paso line will fall into the SP’s hands, only to be gobbled up 16 years later by all-conquering Union Pacific.
