New Mexico
I've been visiting New Mexico for decades. It's a drop dead beautiful state with a fascinating set of cultures, towns, cities and, yes, interesting trains. Though I start with a photo taken back in the sixties of the Santa Fe's Grand Canyon in Albuquerque, most of what you see here was taken in the past few years.
A long time has passed since Santa Fe days, but Alburquerque and New Mexico hums with passenger activity. Here are some photos taken back in 2007 in and around the Albuquerque station. We start with Amtrak's Southwest Chief arriving from Chicago on its way to Los Angeles. In a lucky break for this photographer it shared the the station with what was once the GrandLuxe American Orient Express (which, very sadly, was very soon to go out of business)
In a rather desperate ploy, GrandLuxe was to collaborate with Amtrak to attach some of its cars to cross country trains, but that failed quickly and this beautiful train, which had been gloriously refurbished (it even had a computer workstation area for connection to the web) was soon out of business.
At one time Amtrak trains arrived at the venerable Alvarado Hotel, where one could step off and enjoy a meal in the dining room or, right up until the end of Santa Fe, purchase Native American arts and crafts. Today Amtrak is served by a rather forelorn appearing station that is more attractive on the inside than outside.
From Albuquerque we head east on I25 to Bernallio, where we catch the Chief in full flight heading east.
From there we head over to the tiny town of Lamy, just south of Santa Fe, home of a station that appears not (happily) to have changed for decades..
Here's the westbound Chief arriving in Lamy. Next we turn to New Mexico's exciting new rail venture, the New Mexico Rail Runner.
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