The I-1s don’t stop here anymore, and it’s been a long time since a shiny-boilered 900-class Mountain slogged up the grade out of Barstow with the heavyweight Pullmans of The Westerner on the drawbar and topped off its tank at the top of the hill.
The last of Elesco-heated water drained its lifeblood out of the big boilers 70 years ago, puddling about the scrap line in Marshall, acetylene torches chewing away at the fine products of Lima and Alco and Baldwin, and spitting ‘em out into swaybacked gondolas back in 1953.
Swamp Holly Geeps and blue and gray Fs had no need to pause here, the DC current flowing through their traction motors not requiring a stop to replenish a tender while the hogger oiled around, and so they just kept rolling right past on their way to Fort Worth, leaving their signature hazy blue smoke to drift away against the setting West Texas sun.
Almost nothing stops in Barstow, Texas anymore.
Interstate 20 effectively put the Bankhead Highway out of business, and the short stretches still in existence around Barstow and Pecos and Toyah and Pyote have been unceremoniously dubbed ‘Business I-20’ instead and see mostly oilfield traffic in support of the Permian Basin drilling and production operations.
The 4 FDLs and a lone 710 powering a long intermodal train east from Santa Teresa yard out El Paso way won’t stop here either. They’ll hammer away at the sky and their AC traction motors won’t miss a beat until they roll to a stop for a crew change in Sweetwater.
Only the coyote will pause, but briefly though. He’ll halt his trot and sniff the air, hoping to pick up the scent of an unwary roadrunner, a tasty morsel for dinner, perhaps.
When 21,900 horsepower worth of hot diesel exhaust hits his nose like an Acme rocket, he’ll fade back into the creosote bush and move on as well.
Better hungry than dead.
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Eastbound on the old Texas & Pacific near Barstow, Texas at 7:01 pm, March 2nd, 2022.