Rotary OY Trip - 3, The Escalante Western

Hi, The Escalante Western is/was a railroad built to get coal from a Peabody Energy mine about six miles east of Crownpoint, NM to a power plant about four miles north of Prewitt, NM. The power plant was scheduled to close in April 2020 and with its closure the railroad would no longer be needed and would shut down.

The railroad consists of two short spurs splice by BNSF's Lee Ranch Sub Which runs from Baca on BNSF's Transcon to 43 miles to the Lee Ranch mine. The first segment is about two miles long from the power plant to Escalante Junction on the Lee Ranch Sub. The second segment departs the Lee Ranch Sub 22 miles north at Lee Ranch Junction and runs to the mine.

As we knew the railroad was scheduled to shut down it was the second main objective for our trip and Dave Busse and I planned to photograph it on Friday, 2/28, before heading to Chama, and on Monday, 3/2 as we began our return to the Los Angeles area. As it turned out everything went according to plan.

On the days the train operates it usually leaves the power plant between 7 and 8 AM. However, on Friday Dave spotted it on the road just about 7 AM so we immediately headed east and then north to get on New Mexico route 509. Between the road crossing just east of the power plant and the point where the railroad comes out next to NM 509 access is very limited and we were unfamiliar with the country. By heading immediately for NM 509 we were able to get ahead of the empty train. It is shown above and two below headed for the mine.

The train usually takes 1 1/2 to 2 hours to load so we scoped out a location along NM 509 (above and two below) and waited for it.

Then we took off for the Rout 19 grade crossing just east of the power plant (above and below).

On March 2 we decided to run non stop from Chama to the Peabody mine to see if we could get there before the train left. We thought we saw the train loading in the mine so again staked out a place to wait for it. It turns out we were wrong. The train was not loading in the mine. In fact a few minutes after we picked out our spot we heard a horn to the south and Dave spotted the empties (above and two below).

A little more exploration while the train loaded garnered this location (above and below) where NM 509 crosses the line north of Lee Ranch Junction on an over pass.

We then once again headed for the power plant. However, this time we turned east off Route 19 north of the crossing and went in to Escalante Junction. The photos (above and below) were taken from private property with permission.

Thanks for looking.