Friday was a good day to arrive in Santa
Fe, New Mexico, even though this particular Friday was the 13th!
As luck would have it, the brochure rack at the hotel had the bright
title "
TRAIN RIDE!" peeking out
from the rack, attracting my eye. Below the title were the
words,
Year-Round
From Santa Fe * Scenery * History * Fun. A working freight
train. Vintage passenger cars. Starkly beautiful
high-desert scenery. Santa Fe Southern Railway is a moving
experience! The back of the brochure gave the number to
call for reservations and mentioned,
Charters * Group & School Rates * Cab
Rides * Holiday Trains.
Their specific rides are:
Scenic Day Train, Friday Afternoon "Hot
Shot" Run, High-Desert Highball Train (Friday evenings), and Campfire Barbecue Train (Saturday
nights). Knowing we were in town for both Friday and
Saturday nights, I called and found that Vicki Pozzebon was their
"Marketing and PR Engineer" (vicki@sfsr.com), and made arrangements to
go
on the 6:30 Friday
High-Desert Highball Train (Friday
evenings).
The brochure described it as,
Friday evenings, April
- October. Departure timed for sunset. Drink in the
spectacular sunset while sipping spirits from our cash bar. Make
new friends. Relax and enjoy complimentary hors d'oeuvres while
riding the train to the rim of the Galisteo Basin and back to Santa
Fe. Round trip: 2.5 hrs. Silver ticket: seating in any car except
the dome, $35. Dome ticket: seating in the dome $45.
Excited about my evening trip, we
stopped by the Santa Fe station that afternoon to be sure I could meet
the "Hot Shot" on time in the evening run. It was then that
I actually met Vicki, between runs on the train, and discussed my
writing of this story. I took a few pictures of the station and
equipment, as it returned from a Hot Shot Train Run with loads of
school children.
