Southern Transcon
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The Southern Transcon is a main line of the
BNSF Railway BNSF Railway is the largest freight railroad in the United States. One of six North American Class I railroads, BNSF has 36,000 employees, of track in 28 states, and over 8,000 locomotives. It has three Transcontinental railroad, transcontine ...
comprising 11 subdivisions between
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and
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,
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. Completed in its current alignment in 1908 by the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, when it opened the Belen Cutoff in
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(going through eastern New Mexico, northwestern
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, briefly part of western
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and to
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) and bypassed the steep grades of Raton Pass (which passes through northeastern New Mexico and southwestern Colorado), it now serves as a mostly double-tracked intermodal corridor. The Transcon is one of the most heavily trafficked rail corridors in the western United States: , an average of almost 90 trains daily (over 100 trains on peak days) passed over the section between Belen and Clovis, New Mexico, with each train typically long.


History

The Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway completed a railroad between
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
and
Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural List of regions of California, region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. Its densely populated coastal reg ...
in the 1880s. Much of the route had already been constructed by subsidiaries. The line in California between Needles and Mojave was built by the
Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...
to meet the St. Louis and San Francisco Railway, which had built west from Isleta, New Mexico. They met at Needles with the line put into service in 1883. The Atlantic and Pacific Railroad, then essentially an operating subsidiary of the AT&SF, leased the line from the SP in August 1884, and in November 1885 the AT&SF-owned California Southern Railroad completed its line over Cajon Pass to the SP's Needles branch at Barstow, giving the AT&SF access to the west coast. The Southern Kansas Railway built a branch to
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in the 1880s, and the Pecos Valley and Northeastern Railway also built an extension from Amarillo to Pecos via Texico, New Mexico in 1899. The route was less than ideal, especially where it crossed Raton Pass and Glorieta Pass. The steep grades posed operational problems, including congestion, slow speeds, and the need for
helper engine A bank engine (United Kingdom/Australia) (colloquially a banker), banking engine, helper engine or pusher engine (North America) is a railway locomotive that temporarily assists a train that requires additional Engine power, power or tractive ef ...
s. As an interim solution, a second track, with a longer tunnel, was opened at Raton in 1908, but this simply added capacity, and the grades remained. In 1902 the Santa Fe began surveying a new cutoff that would bypass this segment entirely.


Belen Cutoff

To complete the line between Texico and a point northwest of Belen, New Mexico, the Santa Fe incorporated the Eastern Railway of New Mexico in October 1902, and began construction of the Belen Cutoff the next January. The entire line was completed on July 1, 1908, allowing through freight trains to bypass the 3–3.5% grades of the old line for the maximum grade of 1.25% (at Abo Canyon) on the new line. (Most passenger trains continued to use Raton Pass so as to serve Colorado.) The Pecos Valley and Northeastern (but not its Texas subsidiaries, because of Article X of the Texas Constitution) was consolidated into the Eastern in March 1907, and in January 1912, the property of the Eastern was conveyed to the Santa Fe.
Interstate Commerce Commission The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC) was a regulatory agency in the United States created by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The agency's original purpose was to regulate railroads (and later Trucking industry in the United States, truc ...
, 127 I.C.C. 1 (1927): Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Company


Other improvements

To connect central Texas to this line, the Pecos and Northern Texas Railway completed the Coleman Cutoff, running southeast from Texico to the Santa Fe subsidiary Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway at Coleman, in 1914. A third line was almost completed in the 1920s and 1930s, when the Santa Fe built the majority of the planned Dodge City– Colmor, NM (Colmor Cutoff), which would provide a second bypass of Raton (but not Glorieta), but construction stopped at Farley, and the line was torn up west of Boise City in 1942. The completion of the Belen Cutoff did not end improvements to the transcontinental route. The Ellinor Cutoff opened in 1924, cutting through the Flint Hills from the original main line at Ellinor, Kansas, southwest to El Dorado on the main line to Texas. This allowed trains bound for the Belen Cutoff to cut directly to Mulvane, bypassing Wichita to the southeast. To the west, in Arizona, the Santa Fe constructed a new line between Williams and Crookton, bypassing the sharp curves and steep grades of the line via Ash Fork built by the Atlantic and Pacific Railroad in the 1880s. The $19.3-million realignment opened on December 19, 1960, and the old line was abandoned west of the Phoenix connection at Ash Fork. Smaller improvements included installation of centralized traffic control on the Belen Cutoff in the 1940s. Also, by October 2018, the entire Southern Transcon was double-tracked, except for two bridges; and, projects were underway to add triple- and even quadruple-track along the busiest parts.


Constituent rail lines

The Southern Transcon railroad corridor is made up of the following BNSF rail lines which are referred to as subdivisions, in order from west to east.


Passenger trains

Parts of the route are utilized by passenger rail services — BNSF does not operate regular passenger trains outside of the Chicago Subdivision.
Amtrak The National Railroad Passenger Corporation, Trade name, doing business as Amtrak (; ), is the national Passenger train, passenger railroad company of the United States. It operates intercity rail service in 46 of the 48 contiguous United Stat ...
's ''
Southwest Chief The ''Southwest Chief'' (formerly the ''Southwest Limited'' and ''Super Chief'') is a Amtrak Long Distance, long-distance passenger train operated by Amtrak on a route between Chicago and Los Angeles through the Midwest and American Southwest ...
'' runs once daily in each direction on the Transcon, but via the Glorieta, Raton, La Junta Subdivision and Topeka between Albuquerque and Kansas City. The '' Pacific Surfliner'' also operates between
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and Fullerton. Until its cancellation in 1997, Amtrak's '' Desert Wind'' used the Southern Transcon between Los Angeles and Barstow. The proposed Coachella Valley Rail train from RCTC, which is anticipated to be operated by Amtrak, would initially run two roundtrips a day over the Transcon from LA Union Station to the Colton Crossing. Southern California's Metrolink
commuter rail Commuter rail or suburban rail is a Passenger train, passenger rail service that primarily operates within a metropolitan area, connecting Commuting, commuters to a Central business district, central city from adjacent suburbs or commuter town ...
trains utilize the route between Los Angeles and San Bernardino. These include the Orange County Line (between Los Angeles and Fullerton), 91/Perris Valley Line (between Los Angeles and Highgrove), and Inland Empire–Orange County Line (between Atwood and San Bernardino).


See also

* Northern Transcon * Central Corridor (Union Pacific Railroad) * Fort Madison Toll Bridge


References

{{reflist


External links


A user-made map of the full route on Google My Maps
BNSF Railway lines Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway Rail lines in California Rail lines in Illinois Railway lines opened in 1908 Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway lines Rail infrastructure in Arizona