Their breath, blackened with carbon and atomized diesel, rises as the heat rippling off the parched land, bending in the stiff breeze; a scorching wind that provides little relief for the radiator cores that struggle to keep prime movers cool enough to prevent them from shutting down. Unlike the creatures that find shelter from the 110-degree heat in their holes hidden in the shade of the saltbush, there is no respite from the harshness for the caravan of faded and mismatched Centerflows and Trinities sprinkled with the here-and-there PS-2 for flavor, their lading compressing the springs on roller-bearing Barbers and stretching out the drawbar as 710 and FDL team up to drag them off the salt flats of the Animas Valley and up the grade towards the shallow saddle in the north end of the Pyramid Mountains, only then stopping for a brief pause at the oasis of Lordsburg.
Forty miles behind them, up past Steins Peak in the jagged Peloncillo Mountains, a summertime desert monsoon lays down a barrage on the vast and dry San Simon Valley over Arizona way, filling Ryan Draw and Timber Draw and Gold Gulch with raging torrents of muddy water as they wash their way down into the dry San Simon River, tumbling over stones and carrying the flotsam of the desert towards a meeting with the Gila River near Safford.
But the water that fell this day over the Madrean Sky Islands of Arizona will never find its way to the Colorado River and the Gulf of California.
Once navigable from New Mexico to Yuma, damming and diversion projects heralded by modern man have rendered the channel of the Gila River dry for a good portion of its length, and today’s rains that hammered the Pinalena Mountains and roared down their slopes will most likely suffer from evaporation and die somewhere in the Pueblo Valley.
But here, on the long climb out of a pluvial lake that dried up 11,000 years ago, there will be no monsoon downpour to slicken the railheads or cool the air---
Only a test of machines and those that are called to operate them.
The desert is content with the status quo.
---RAM
Rick Malo©2024
Eastbound on the Union Pacific Sunset Route near Lordsburg, NM. July 4th, 2021.
The desert will always have its way.
As it is at ancient Palmyra, so is it here at a tiny oasis in the Chihuahuan Desert, once-useful columns laboriously built still stand-to, a testament to a once-great civilization that has succumbed to progress and the ravages of time.
We are far removed from the caravans that plied the Silk Road, camels struggling under the weight of trade with the Han Dynasty, yet the Comanche Trace is close at hand where the hooves of mounted warriors churned up the dust as they launched great raids into southwest Texas and far down into Old Mexico, instilling terror among the settlers as the first full moon of September---the Comanche Moon---provided the illumination for their nocturnal predations.
We are but a few lost sighs and fading memories of a generation passed from the last ploddings of 2-10-2s and Mk-class Mikados as they rolled tonnage across the storied Sunset Route; of iced PFE reefers filled with Rio Grande Valley produce, and stock extras out of the pens at Marfa, and of flatcars and heavyweight Pullmans loaded with the Arsenal of Democracy as it headed off to war.
As too at Palmyra, they all stopped to slake their thirst and rest a bit, weary souls replenishing for the journey across the desert wastes.
And though the Afghan pine and mountain juniper and the wispy mesquite of Marathon, Texas have taken the place of the date palms of Syria, and the rains of spring have brought the wildflowers to bloom and the buffalo and Johnson grasses to height, the desert is always ready to reclaim everything for its own.
The depot and house track and line poles are long gone, their usefulness negated by progress and internal combustion and satellite communications. Even the siding has been moved west of town so as not to interfere with the comings and goings of the hearty souls who populate this place.
And someday, even the ghosts will disappear, bit by crumbling, rusting bit, returning to the very elements that were poured into a form and reinforced with steel---
Iron and carbon and dust.
The rains of May will wash them into the soils, and the never-ceasing winds will patiently and relentlessly scour them from dawn to dusk and in the light of a thousand full moons, lifting them grain-by-grain to tint the air of the western skies, where, in a final act of glory, the setting sun’s rays will pass through the haze and cast magnificent hues upon those who are fortunate to stand as witness; a last dying act as they drift aimlessly until they are of the land once again.
The hiss of acetylene long ago vanquished the iron beast, nailing the lid shut on a sarcophagus that 567s and 244s had helped usher the steam giants into, there to metamorphosize as nuts and bolts and nails that filled the bins at local hardware stores, and razor blades that hung from display racks at the corner pharmacy.
The aforementioned EMDs and ALCos had no need to stop. They passed by mostly without even throttling down. Today’s GEVOs mumble and seemingly sputter an asthmatic chant as they rumble past, perhaps a hogger or two casting a glance at the almost-Neolithic columns that once supported the lifeblood of an industry---
That which boiled intensely above a crown sheet---
And which comprises 70% of the earth’s surface---
And 70% of the human form itself---
Water.
Rick Malo©2024
Union Pacific C44ACM 9625, with empty autoracks on the drawbar, rumbles east through Marathon, Texas past the concrete footings and piers that once supported the great steel water tank that supplied water to countless Southern Pacific steam locomotives as they made their way along the Sunset Route.
It's a bright and warm February 2021 afternoon as Arizona Eastern B39-8 2322 leads a quartet of 4-axle GEs rolling into Bowie, AZ on Union Pacific's Sunset Route with a freight from Lordsburg, New Mexico. In a few hundred feet they will switch onto AE's home trackage and continue their journey to Globe, AZ.
In vain, the wispy fingers of afternoon virgas desperately reach towards the Sky Islands of the Little Dragoon Mountains late on a February 2021 afternoon as a set of GEs roll westbound containers through Cochise, Arizona on the grade up to Dragoon Summit.
Sunset Afternoon.
SD70M 4460 leads a westbound stack train over the old highway between Bowie and Willcox, AZ on a February 2021 afternoon.
There will be no FREDs that have been gutted and placed upon a short piece of track, there to be lovingly refurbished with all the things deemed necessary for nightly comfort, a landscaped bed of pansies waving gently in the breeze to greet the weary traveler in his quest for evening accommodations.
There will be no buzzing neon sign hanging jauntily at the entrance to the property proclaiming vacancy, or not, at the EOT Motel.
Their flanks will not sport the colorful liveries and slogans and company emblems of all the great railroads that we have known and loved for so many years---
And watch die.
No one will rise early, slide their feet into warm slippers and perch themselves in the cupola or bay window, steaming coffee in hand, there to wipe off the night’s breath from window panes and enjoy a glorious morning view of some mountain range or memorable curve on a line whose history was first inked in a century past.
FRED will never know enshrinement in some city park or on some disjointed house track adjacent to a preserved old depot, his new home surrounded by chain link and barbed wire, adorned with signs that announce the hazards and penalties of climbing on the equipment.
And, to the taxpayer’s relief, there certainly won’t be any preservation groups gathering to desperately wave “SAVE THE FRED!” banners as city council meetings are called to discuss the disposition of some unsightly and graffiti covered piece of railroad memorabilia that no one ever comes to see anymore.
The golden age of children waving enthusiastically as the caboose breezes past a grade crossing died almost a full generation ago, as did the jobs that were lost to a box that has no arms to wave with, and whose only breath is a faint hiss of air escaping through worn gladhand rubbers.
No heart.
No soul.
No moving parts.
No generator belt for power.
And no smokejack showing signs of a hot stove brewing coffee.
Just the inhuman act of flashing red.
Rick Malo©2023
The full moon rises just before the sun sets over the desert country at Marathon, Texas as a pair of EMDs roll autoracks eastbound on February 4th, 2023.
Gold in the desert.
A summertime thunderstorm drenches a parched land and sliding-door refugees that have taken up temporary residence in the siding at Marathon, Texas on the evening of June 28th, 2022.
"Down from Dragoon."
The sun dies fast in winter. It casts a desperate beam through a gap in the Little Dragoon Mountains and grabs the curve of the earth, hanging on just a little longer, warming cold steel just a few degrees as eastbound containers roll out of the curve at milepost 1055 and into the shadows of the Gunnison Hills.
Three graduates of the Building 10 Institute in Erie will do their very best to hold gravity in check as the grade steepens to 1.36%.
By the time they reach the Sulphur Springs Valley and speed across the Willcox Playa, the sky will be deep with the pinks and purples of twilight, and they'll have green all the way to Lordsburg.
***
Near Cochise, Arizona. February 19th, 2021.
The April sun just cracks over the heights of the ancient Paisano caldera, and 710s and GEVOs scream like banshees as they dig into the railhead and fight gravity hard on the 1 percent grade up off the Marfa plateau. With a dead-on-hours eastbound train in the siding at milepost 620, the hogger on 9056 has got beans and a hotel room in Alpine on his mind as he bends his eastbound hotshot around the curve and up towards Paisano Pass.
He's got 12 of the most beautiful miles in Texas to go.
On May 24th, 2021, the Union Pacific stubbed its toe and scattered shipping containers across both mainline tracks at Separ, New Mexico, and even though crews worked hard to clear the mess and open one track for business, the bottle neck existed into July of that year.
Early on the morning of July 4th, 2021, the 7010 and her two GE companions plus two mid-train DPUs have struggled with a monster intermodal train since leaving Santa Teresa, and even though out of sight around the curve, their battle with the 1 percent grade up out of Raso was epic and audible for eternity.
It was no difficult task for the 2560 and her short hotshot to catch her, slipping through the crossover at Luzena and running around on the eastbound track.
Here, just east of Willcox, Arizona, the 7010, tongue hanging out and winded, takes a breather on the westbound main as the conductor climbs down to watch the 2560 breeze by in a flash.
With dawn just breaking over the Chiricahua mountains, the chill and damp morning air of the Sulphur Springs valley is shattered as 13,100 horsepower roll westbound freight down the Sunset Route just east of Willcox, Arizona on February 14th, 2021.
The Sunset Limited on the Sunset Route at sunset.
At 8:55 pm on April 19th, 2021 Amtrak Train #2 storms past the siding at Strobel, Texas just east of Alpine near milepost 600.
