The Southwest Chief leaves Kansas City at 10:45 PM sharp and runs through the heartland of America in the dead of night, and day breaks with the Rockies. Blue dawn gives way to shades of pink and orange, revealing a snow covered and flat landscape
An overview of the Southwest Chief’s route from Chicago to Los Angeles. Much of the track follows an alignment of historial U.S. Route 66 west of Albuquerque, NM. Image courtesy of www.amtrak.com
Passengers board Amtrak’s Southwest Chief at Union Station in Kansas City, MO on December 10th, 2011. The train departs at 10:45 PM and heads West, arriving in Los Angele’s Union Station 36 hours later.
Dawn casts a glow over a lone tree on the Western Kansas Prairie at 6:45 A.M. near the route of the Southwest Chief.
Chris, a Train Attendant or “TA” checks paperwork as the Chief stops briefly in La Junta, Colorado on Sunday morning. The temperature is 19 degrees as a new crew of conductors boards the train.
Herbert, left, and Pat Walton, right wait for their lunch in the dining car aboard the Southwest Chief. Herbert was on his way home from New York to California, and Pat was headed to Flagstaff from visiting family in Ohio. There are three full hot meal services a day aboard the train.
The historical center of downtown Raton, NM as the Southwest Chief stops briefly. Raton was founded in the late 19th century as a railroad town, and today is still a stop.
The Chief stops at Lamy Station just south of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Lamy is the stop for Amtrak passengers heading to New Mexico’s Capitol City.
Amtrak conductor G. Norris radios to crew members that the Southwest Chief will be departing Raton, NM in 5 minutes after a smoke break stop.
The observation or “lounge car” on the Southwest Chief is usually crowded with passengers looking for an open view of passing scenery. The sun sets heading West from Albuquerque. On the first level of the car there is a full bar, but drinks cannot be served until the train crosses over the Arizona State Line due to New Mexico Liquor laws.
Jim Ryan has been a conductor for Amtrak for 3 years. He recently was assigned to the La Junta-Albuquerque route after transferring from commuter lines in Pennsylvania. Ryan is purchasing a home in Albuquerque with his fiancee. Ryan formerly worked in the construction industry, and followed an opportunity to work with Amtrak since trains “stopped me from crying” as they went by when Ryan was a child.
Burlington Northern Santa Fe freight cars sit in the yard at Albuquerque, New Mexico as the Southwest Chief passes by Westward at sunset.
Brake and switch lights illuminate rails traveled by the Southwest Chief as it arrives in Flagstaff, AZ. The Chief then rattles through the night under a full moon west of Flagstaff, headed west towards Los Angeles at daybreak.
A large spillway descends from the San Gabriel Mountains near San Bernardino, CA during a heavy rainstorm as the Southwest Chief passes by on its final leg to Union Station in Los Angeles, CA.
The two diesel electric engines struggle up the Raton pass, taking the curves slowly and steadily. The cars pass snow, freshly minted over burned out forests, a reminder of the drought and rampant wildfires in July of 2011 that affected much of Northern New Mexico. Another stop in Raton, shorter this time but enough precious minutes for a quick cigarette. Its already time for lunch, and individual passengers are seated with
Herbert, left, is a Los Angeles native who has spent the last ten months traveling the United States visiting old friends. Herbert decided to take a travel hiatus after working constantly in the restaurant industry for 6 years, where he “worked his way up… from doing dishes” to more lucrative positions.
Most recently he lived in New York working part time with friends for three months and also spent time in Washington DC. To get out East from LA Herbert took a bus cross-country and wanted to try something different on the way back. Herbert’s itinerary will see him on nearly 60 hours of continuous train rides, 11 hours from New York to Chicago, and 41 hours straight from Chicago to Los Angeles on the Southwest Chief.
To the right is Pat Walton of Flagstaff, Arizona. Walton was returning from Cleveland, OH where she was visiting family. Walton works in the Human Resources Department at the National Park service, where her husband has also worked for years. Before living in flagstaff Walton was stationed at the remote Dry Tortutgas National Park, a three hours’ ferry ride west of Key West. Dry Tortugas NP houses the largest masonry structure in the Western Hemisphere, Fort Jefferson. Coincidentally, both Pat and the photographer knew captain “Salty” a New England transplant turned Key West ferry captain who operates the boat from Key West to Dry Tortugas.
Wanda Daily is a lifelong resident and native of Garden City, Kansas. Wanda was up at 4 AM to catch the Southwest Chief as it stopped briefly in Garden City at 6 AM. She was on her way to visit her son in Farmington, New Mexico. Daily is a proud new grandparent and is looking forward to visiting her grandchild much “like going to Disneyland” would be for a child. Daily’s son will pick her up from the Albuquerque Amtrak station on Central Street in downtown and drive the four hours north to Farmington, which does not have an Amtrak Station.
Lunch over, the train heads past Pecos National Monument and through the Glorieta pass, site of New Mexico’s only Civil War battle in 1863. By now the train has climbed from a few hundred feet above sea level to nearly 6,000 feet. The mountains are filled with the rich red earth of New Mexico, topped off by pine trees and snow filled arroyos. Red earth, white snow, and blue sky.
A brief stop in Lamy, South of Santa Fe to take on passengers an onward to an extended stop in Albuquerque. The station is in downtown, off of Central Avenue near the airport. The train lays over for an hour, the longest stop on the route and roughly halfway between Kansas City and Los Angeles. The sun begins to set and lights clouds fantastic colors as the Chief speeds west towards Gallup and into the remote Southwest. The darkness takes over by 5:30 PM and after dinner there’s not much to do.
Sleep overcomes most passengers early on this leg, as the train hits Gallup and Flagstaff, snatching Grand Canyon goers in a 5-minute pit stop. Not much to see from the train since light cloud cover obscures light from the moon. From there it is a race through the inky desert night, through railroad towns like Kingman, Williams, Needles, and Barstow. Announcements begin at 5:30 AM in San Bernardino, and breakfast ends as quickly as it started once the train leaves Riverside. Into the suburbs and sprawl of Los Angeles the train goes, towards Fullerton and East Los Angeles. Walls blanketed in graffiti separate blue-collar sub divisions from the tracks. Industrial sites and distribution warehouses make their presence known, a marriage of convenience in logistics and cheap land.
At Vernon, the massive modern freight yard makes its presence known. A dozen tracks wide and hundreds of freight cars and gantry cranes speckle the yard here. It is the logistics hub for UPS Ground packages in Southern California, and a waypoint for cargo coming into the Port of Los Angeles to points radiating across the US.
The train heads past the Los Angeles River, concreted in a flood control channel, a glorified drainage ditch. Splotches of gray paint cover naked concrete, where graffiti has been covered up. The sky is gray and the rain falls steadily. Raindrops against the window obscure palm trees in the distance, misplaced in such conditions. The Southwest Chief slowly pulls into Union Station reluctant to divulge the passengers ensconced in its aluminum walls for days. The 2200 miles it has traveled in two days from Chicago is over and the passengers de-board in a hurry. The platform is an awkward medley of asphalt and concrete, a commuter platform built for efficiency and speed, not cross country arrivals.
It’s a short walk through a tunnel, and into Union Station proper. The station’s appearance is much like it was decades ago, with the vintage tile floor and oversized leather couches with wood trim. Commuters and men dressed in Mariachi outfits hurry to catch commuter trains radiating throughout Southern California. A Salvation Army band plays Christmas music in red Kepi uniforms and wreaths hang on the rafters. Transit police rouse homeless who slept overnight. It’s a different time and place, but the name of the end is the same as the beginning, Union Station to Union Station.