Making the grade – To make sure this six-car train can successfully negotiate the demanding climb over Raton Pass, the Santa Fe has assigned an SD for each car, and a GP50 for the caboose. Alway... (more)

Colorado’s famous Joint Line starts here. Already running on Rio Grande rails, Santa Fe F7A 247 heads an ABBBA set of F’s out of Denver on a hazy April morning, bound for La Junta via Colorado... (more)

Shop mechanics perform a sustained load test on SD24 No. 4511. They had the prime mover running full-out for at least a half an hour. Honestly, I don't know how they could hear each other, the sou... (more)

Eastbound Santa Fe freight climbing Cajon Pass at Blue Cut

Santa Fe SD26 4640 a rebuilt SD24, with two SD40-2s 5058 and 5200.

For some freight cars the end of the line is not necessarily the scrapper’s torch, but instead finding use somewhere else other than the railroad. This former Santa Fe covered hopper built in M... (more)

Moonrise over Alco: Sunset on December 17, 1964, finds Santa Fe 600/2140/2116/2124 setting out from La Junta, Colorado with the overnight freight for Albuquerque. At Raton, the lead units will be ... (more)

The westbound Grand Canyon has come and gone, and the Raton Pass helpers, Alco RSD7 609 with RSD5 2158, bask in the July heat at the Raton engine terminal. In the cool of the evening, they’ll ta... (more)

Santa Fe 2130, in from La Junta, idles at the Pueblo engine terminal. By December, 1964, Santa Fe’s 53 Alco RSD5s are running out their final miles in Colorado and New Mexico freight service, as... (more)

On spring afternoons, clouds often pile up against the foothills along the Joint Line between Denver and Palmer Lake letting loose brief thunderstorms that can fill dry creek beds and slow traffic... (more)

Westbound Denver to Barstow manifest near East Crookton

Led by rebuilt SF30-C 9546 in Kodachrome paint, Santa Fe's Train 408 sails off Raton Pass into Raton, N.M. on Dec. 2, 1989. For help up to the summit (highest point on the ATSF at 7,588-ft.) addi... (more)

Santa Fe Denver to Barstow train 408 was climbing Yampai Hill westbound near Yampai

Santa Fe eastbound train 804 pauses for a crew change at Seligman, Arizona, on December 28, 1972, durning a brief snow squall. Locomotives on Extra 4551 East: 4551-4562-4530-9842 (SD24/SD24/SD24/R... (more)

FP-45 #103 and 3 "Kodachrome" units bring a hotshot "Q" train (they used to call them "Quality trains" -- pigs only) symboled EPKC -- moving from El Paso to Kansas City via Raton Pass and La Junt... (more)