Way to New Mexico - 1

Today's entry is the first of several that will document our recent New Mexico vacation -- my first visit there in three years. It's amazing to think that I've been to Hawaii twice since the last time I was in New Mexico.

I'm shooting photos of so many things these days that I'm going to have to break my reports up into separate categories -- trains, ghost signs, kids and family, etc. So if you don't see what you're interested in this time, just check back in a day or two.

Early on the morning of Sunday, March 16, I headed west on I-20. Mom and K and the kids had left the day before. It would be a leisurely trip since I was by myself. Here are a few of the trains I saw...

One of the first trains I saw after hitting the road on Sunday March 16 was this UP westbound led by the Missouri Pacific "heritage" locomotive # 1982, shown here leaving Baird, Texas on a stack train bound for California. Interestingly, once the locomotive arrived in the Los Angeles area, UP sent it north on a ZLCBR train, which rerouted up the Oregon Trunk and through the Columbia River gorge. So by the time I was a few days into my New Mexico trip, the 1982 was in Washington State!

Faded T&P lettering graces a concrete bridge at Loraine, TX.

An eastbound races through a cut at Colorado City, TX.

Brownfield, Texas: Santa Fe-style station sign and locomotives in the Texas Northeastern scheme.

ILSX 1387 at Brownfield, Texas: March 16, 2008

This fading Amerail logo adorns the side of a storage boxcar at Brownfield.

Next up: Way to New Mexico - 2, featuring west Texas ghost signs and other roadside views.

WSC

np: James McMurtry - Angeline