New Mexico, Colorado and Arizona - 8, BNSF's Southern Tanscon - 3

Hi, On Thursday, June 8 we spent a good bit of the early morning at the BNSF grade crossing with county Route 19 in Prewitt, NM. From there every 15 minutes or so we went up to the Plains Escalante Generating Station plant to see if there was any sign of activity as the coal train was supposed to run that day. However, when nothing happened by 10:00 AM we gave up and concentrated on the Transcon the remainder of the day.

Here a Citirail unit is one of the DPUs on an eastbound stack train.

When this westbound  auto rack train appeared Dale commented that he had to come all the way to New Mexico to see the NS Southern heritage unit.

Here are four more trains (above and four below) at the grade crossing. Note that the two photos immediately below are of the same train.

Amtrak's train # 4, the Southwest Chief, heads east.

Moving east our next location was North Acomita Village, NM. It was interesting how the contemporary homes were built in the middle of the ruins of the old dwellings.

After a short wait an eastbound work train showed up.

There must have been track work ahead at Casa Blanca, NM because the work train had to wait here until an opposing grain train (DPUs shown in the two photos below) crossed over at the interlocking behind me.

Heading west again we spotted a westbound stack train from I40 near McArtys, NM and had time to take the next exit to this location east of Grants, NM (above and below). We had photographed an east bound stack train and the eastbound Southwest Chief from this location the day before.

Continuing west we stopped east of Prewitt, NM for these views of an eastbound and

a westbound (above and below).

Moving west again we stopped at Coolidge, NM for a few trains - a west bound oil train above,

a west bound stack train (above and below),

the DPUs on another westbound oil train, and

and an eastbound double stack (above and below).

For our final photos we returned to Prewitt where we found stacked up stack trains.

Finally they were cut loose and the lead train started to move.

The last shot of the day was of an eastbound stack train. Thanks for looking.