Santa Fe Depot is the northern terminus of the

New Mexico Rail Runner Express The New Mexico Rail Runner Express ( AAR reporting mark NMRX) is a commuter rail system serving the metropolitan areas of Albuquerque and Santa Fe, New Mexico. It is administered by the New Mexico Department of Transportation (NMDOT) and the R ...

commuter rail Commuter rail, or suburban rail, is a passenger rail transport service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Downtown, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter towns. Generally commuter r ...

line. The station was originally built by the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison and Topeka, Kansas, and ...

, and until 2014 served as the northern terminus, offices, and gift shop of the

Santa Fe Southern Railway The Santa Fe Southern Railway is a short line railroad in New Mexico, United States. In addition to carrying freight on occasion, it also operates as a tourist railroad called Sky Railway that carries passengers between Lamy and Santa Fe: a ...

, a tourist and freight carrying

short line railroad :''Short Line is also one of the four railroads in the American version of the popular board game Monopoly, named after the Shore Fast Line, an interurban streetcar line.'' A shortline railroad is a small or mid-sized railroad company that opera ...

. It is located in Santa Fe,

New Mexico ) , population_demonym = New Mexican ( es, Neomexicano, Neomejicano, Nuevo Mexicano) , seat = Santa Fe , LargestCity = Albuquerque , LargestMetro = Tiguex , OfficialLang = None , Languages = English, Spanish ( New Mexican), Navajo, Ke ...

at 410 Guadalupe Street, within an area of

urban renewal Urban renewal (also called urban regeneration in the United Kingdom and urban redevelopment in the United States) is a program of land redevelopment often used to address urban decay in cities. Urban renewal involves the clearing out of blighte ...

referred to as the "

Railyard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or ...

". Rail Runner service to the station began on December 17, 2008. The station is served by Santa Fe Trails routes 2, 4, and M, a shuttle connecting the station to several locations in and around downtown Santa Fe, a shuttle service to Taos operated by the North Central Regional Transit District, and a shuttle to the Buffalo Thunder Resort & Casino in Pojoaque Pueblo. Each of the Rail Runner stations contains an icon to express each community's identity. The icon representing this station is a locomotive, representing the history of the

rail yard A rail yard, railway yard, railroad yard (US) or simply yard, is a series of tracks in a rail network for storing, sorting, or loading and unloading rail vehicles and locomotives. Yards have many tracks in parallel for keeping rolling stock or u ...

at the site; however the station is devoid of the Rail Runner's distinctive signage bearing the station name and icon.

History

The depot proper was the namesake station of the

Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway , often referred to as the Santa Fe or AT&SF, was one of the larger railroads in the United States. The railroad was chartered in February 1859 to serve the cities of Atchison, Kansas, Atchison and Top ...

(ATSF) starting February 9, 1880Santa Fe Railyard History
and for most of the twentieth century. The depot is the northern terminus of a former ATSF

spur line A branch line is a phrase used in railway terminology to denote a secondary railway line which branches off a more important through route, usually a main line. A very short branch line may be called a spur line. Industrial spur An industr ...

running from Santa Fe to

Lamy Lamy is a German pen manufacturing company. Josef Lamy, who was a sales representative for Parker Pen in Germany, founded the business in 1930 by purchasing the Orthos pen manufacturer. Lamy was a pioneer in the use of moulded synthetic pla ...

, 18 miles to the south. The spur line was built to connect the railroad's namesake destination to its system when the prohibitive

grade Grade most commonly refers to: * Grade (education), a measurement of a student's performance * Grade, the number of the year a student has reached in a given educational stage * Grade (slope), the steepness of a slope Grade or grading may also ref ...

s into Santa Fe were bypassed by the westward expanding railroad's mainline. An expansive network of track once dominated the area around the Santa Fe Depot, which at its height was served by another station shared by the

narrow gauge A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge narrower than standard . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and . Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with tighter curves, smaller structu ...

, D&RG

Chili Line The Chili Line, officially known as the Santa Fe Branch, was a narrow-gauge branch of the Denver and Rio Grande Western Railroad (D&RGW). It ran from Antonito, Colorado, to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The Denver and Rio Grande Railway (D&RG) began c ...

trains traveling to the north, and New Mexico Central Railway trains going south. Both of these railroads had been dismantled by 1942. The ATSF ceased offering passenger train service to Santa Fe with the advent of the

Interstate Highway System The Dwight D. Eisenhower National System of Interstate and Defense Highways, commonly known as the Interstate Highway System, is a network of controlled-access highways that forms part of the National Highway System in the United States. T ...

and replaced it with a motorcoach connection operating up to four daily roundtrips to connect with their long distance trains at Lamy. The motorcoaches still run today, and are operated by

Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, doing business as Amtrak () , is the national passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates inter-city rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous U.S. States and nine cities in Canada ...

and private bus shuttle companies. As the area's industrial activity declined, much of the track and facilities were sold off in favor of other uses. Scheduled passenger rail was restored as a tourist operation with the Santa Fe Southern Railway's purchase of the freight-only Santa Fe spur, including the depot, in the early 1990s. Much of the rail yard was purchased by the City of Santa Fe which later established an enterprise, the Santa Fe Railyard Community Corporation, to oversee the

of its parcel.

Rail Runner

The master plan for the transformation preceded the Rail Runner by several years but the arrival of the Rail Runner was nonetheless accommodated. The result of the development, which was mostly complete as of January 2009, is a train themed district housing community uses such as a park, a youth center, Site Santa Fe, a

farmers' market A farmers' market (or farmers market according to the AP stylebook, also farmer's market in the Cambridge Dictionary) is a physical retail marketplace intended to sell foods directly by farmers to consumers. Farmers' markets may be indoors or o ...

, and commercial activities alongside the working railroads. The park was designed with input from local residents, and was made possible through funding and support from

The Trust for Public Land The Trust for Public Land is a U.S. nonprofit organization with a mission to "create parks and protect land for people, ensuring healthy, livable communities for generations to come". Since its founding in 1972, the Trust for Public Land has compl ...

Gallery

File:RailRunner loco SFSR loco and dome car.jpg, Rail Runner and Santa Fe Southern Railway trains in Santa Fe Depot File:Santa fe depot railrunner.jpg, Santa Fe Depot in winter File:Santa Fe Depot stn viewed from the east.JPG, Streetside of the Santa Fe Depot viewed from the east File:Santa Fe Depot stn viewed from the north2.JPG, Santa Fe Depot viewed from the north

References

External links

''Official Rail Runner site''

Santa Fe Railyard
{{Rail Runner , state=expanded Railway stations in New Mexico Railway stations in the United States opened in 1880 Former Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway stations Buildings and structures in Santa Fe, New Mexico Transportation in Santa Fe County, New Mexico