Photo Day around Belen on the Transcon
April 18, 2015

by David Ingles

With Saturday being a free day, Rick and Phil Moser and I slept in at our hotel, checked out around 9 a.m, and then headed for the nearest point of train action, Belen, about a half hour south. Otto Dobnick had his own agenda this day, riding the Rail Runner from end to end, which we three had done on previous visits. We began our photography at 1010 a.m with the displayed unique Santa Fe articulated motor car M190, which used to handle the Clovis-Carlsbad, N.Mex., run. It is displayed by itself on an empty lot a block or two southwest of the Belen depot, now part of the BNSF office complex; the restored Harvey House is part of that, too. The “title slide” of “Belen” was made on our afternoon re-visit, for a better light angle; the other photo is our morning view.

Seeing a westbound leaving town as we arrived off I-25, and nothing else ready to follow after we shot M-190, we headed southeast and selected the Route 304 grade crossing at MP 189.3 as our first vantage point. We got three eastbounds there in 35 minutes! This point is about 4 miles from the south end of Belen yard, from which the two main tracks narrow from several on an S curve and then cross the Rio Grande (river) heading southeast, then curve due south past our crossing before angling southeast across the desert, heading for the Abo Canyon area. First up was this eastbound stacker with 6837/6749/5276/4191 at 10:39 a.m. DPUs were 8931/6884.

Next, 19 minutes later, was a clone, with 6809/7247/7562 up front and DPUs 7392/7575 on the back. So far, a bag of “oranges.”

Soon, at 11:16 a.m came yet another eastbound stacker, but this with perhaps the best candidate for “consist of the day” up front: Ferromex 4666 and 4699, plus BNSF 6757/5131, with no DPU. I’ve included a close-up of the 2nd unit just to show the full name of the railroad, etc.; this is an example of how I “waste” pixels to get trailing engine numbers. After I write the numbers down, I generally trash the image, but this was one that I had not.

Having gotten bored with the angle at this grade crossing, we immediately moved north, but seeing -- at a distance swinging around the curve off the river bridge -- more action coming, we made it only about ¾ mile to Rio Road and turned left, stopping halfway from Route 304 down to the crossing, where we got not one but two trains, seeing an attempted overtake of the next two eastbounds in the fleet to leave Belen. First, at 11:21, was this (probably empty?) grain train led by 5 units: 4680/4307/4592/CSX 7651/BNSF 7374 (all numbers this day are BNSF unless noted). I apologize if the first image isn’t sharp, I have no idea why; the Ferromex shot may have the same problem.

Then, with his 5 units just past us, what should appear on the close track down at the curve, trying to overtake him, but a two-unit eastbound “vehicle train,” as Santa Fe called them, i.e., solid trilevels. (Normal operation around Belen on the Transcon is "left-handed," tho it's CTC reverse signaled, of course.) We didn’t count the cars, but he had no DPUs. Power: 7249/4445, at 11:24 a.m. Soon, though, the 5 units on the grain hoppers asserted their power and pulled away from the trilevel train. What a show – time to move on, having begun our day with five eastbounds in under an hour, a typical Transcon “fleet” performance!

Our next location was at the Jarales Road crossing on the S curve south of the yard, west of the Rio Grande bridge. This crossing, also Route 109, is often blocked by stopped trains getting into the yard. It is reached by going south from Route 309, the main road east-and-west that bridges the north end of the yard by the old Belen depot and the RailRunner station (east of the BNSF main, north of the road bridge). Unlike our first spot, and a later one, there were trees in the views here. Finally a westbound appeared for us, actually heading southwest briefly at the crossing, coal loads behind 5766/9165/8336/7352, with DPUs 9213/9210 on the rear, at 11:47.

Soon, at 12:03, an eastbound double-stacker left the yard, with the quartet of 6543/6727/7644/6686 up front and no DPU.

The 6543 East had no sooner disappeared around the curve to the Rio Grande bridge when a westbound stacker showed up behind 5042/5007/6751/6539 at 12:10. That’s our rental car, parked on the west side of the crossing, pointing north, in the going-away view.

I had not shot a single slide on this trip before this day, but was working both my newly acquired D700 (used) and N90 on this day of trackside photography. For some reason I took slides only of the next train, an inbound train behind 6537/4530/7504 at 12:23 p.m., and we got a bit clouded as the pictured eastbound vehicle train left town at 12:36 with 6715/CSX 479/7638 up front; I shot a slide only owing to the CSX unit’s presence flavoring the constant parade of orange.

Tiring of the slow-speed action, wary of the clouds, and thinking about lunch, we drove into town. Checking the RailRunner timetable, we learned an inbound from Santa Fe was about due, so we parked at the depot lot, at MP 34.1, to photograph its arrival at 12:50. RailRunner has cut back recently on weekend schedules, and this four-car set was the only train in action this Saturday, bouncing back and forth all day. It pulled in, as train 703, behind MP36 103, and disgorged among its other passengers friends Otto Dobnick and Al Butler, of Boston. Otto went back in a while on the outbund, while Al walked over to the museum in the old Fred Harvey building. A westbound BNSF stack train had pulled in under a road bridge to the north, but didn’t budge toward us or the yard, so we left and canvassed the town, mostly in vain, for a lunch stop and wound up at McDonald’s. Note the fence that separates the single track into the RailRunner platform from the BNSF main line, the first track to the west being the line from Albuquerque, which hosts the commuter trains and splits from the Chief’s main track up at Isleta.

Phil Moser next wanted us to go west, as he knew a spot from a simulator game — west of Dalies where the freight main from Belen and passenger track from ABQ and Isleta join, Dalies being a point not easily accessible for an auto — where a road crosses the double main track. It’s about 18 miles west of Belen, just west of the Rio Puerco crossovers, and after lunch we drove out there; turns out the road leads to a dump/recycling center. Just west of Rio Pureco is where the two main lines split, and operating practice remains “left-handed” out here. We arrived about 2 p.m. and spent a little over an hour here, getting 5 trains. Our first action was the 5766 West, the coal train which we’d shot at 11:47 at Jarales Road, this time at 2:12 p.m.

Our 12th different train of the outing was next at 2:17, an eastbound coal empty behind 6001/6285/4699/1007, the last unit a “Northern” from BNSF’s first post-merger GE order, with DPUs 6028/6257 on the rear.

Ten minutes later came an eastbound intermodal whose leader, a Warbonnet unit, vied with the morning eastbound with the two Ferromex ES44ACs leading for “consist of the day.”  The digital coming-on is a huge crop on a faraway image so I could motor-drive the slide camera. Units: 725/5312/8238/6801, at 2:27.

At 2:41 a mostly “single-stack” container train passed us with 7437/4417/6748/5055 up front.

Our 15th different train of the day, another eastbound stacker, approached and stopped west of us at 2:58, halting until the 7437 East could advance — things were “stacking up” at Belen as they do at many mainline crew-change/servicing stops on busy Midwestern and Western main lines. He sat for 13 minutes before starting up and passing us at 3:08. Power: 6563/6958/7484/7289. After he passed, we headed back east, pacing him along New Mexico 6, the original Route 66 west from Belen, for a while before our routes diverged.

We drove back into Belen for better-lit afternoon shots of M190, plus a grab shot of the back of the old Harvey House museum. Yet another westbound train was leaving, only our third “miss” since our morning arrival. At 3:45 we headed back to Albuquerque, intent on photographing Amtrak #3 when it neared the city with more PVs for Sunday’s special. We set up south of the downtown Bernalillo RailRunner stop and waited quite a while before #3 passed us at 5:38 with units 97/87 and 14 cars including 5 PVs on the rear. We drove back to downtown ABQ, made a quick shot of the Amtrak & Bus depot, then got in touch with friend Chuck Weinstock, who’d flown in from Pittsburgh and taxied to the train. Eventually we connected with him and all went to dinner, finding a crowded (every place was) sports bar along I-25 North. After dinner Rick dropped Phil, Chuck and me at the train, drove to the airport to turn in the rental car, and returned to the train, capping a very successful day!

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