Southwest Railroad History

GEORAILFAN?

Merriam Webster defines a "railfan" as "one whose hobby is railroads or model railroads: a railroad enthusiast."  Wikipedia says a railfan is "a person interested in a recreational capacity in rail transport ... railfans often combine their interest with other hobbies, especially photography and videography, radio scanning, model railroading, studying railroad history, and participating in train station and rolling stock preservation efforts."  

 

A "georailfan" is one whose hobby is railroads, like any railfan, but with emphasis on the routes and infrastructure rather than the trains.  A georailfan doesn't need to ride a train or even have a train around to enjoy his or her hobby.  Just the tracks or an abandoned grade open a whole new world of topography, geomorphology, route selection, civil engineering, American history, and landscape interpretation. 

 

My interest in georailfanning began when I realized how railroad routes are so much more dependent on landforms than rubber-tire highways and my interest blossomed when I began to learn the histories of railroad routes that once I had passed without notice. Georailfans explore and interpret the railroad grades, tracks, tunnels, depots, and other railroad features that can be seen on today's landscapes. And, if a train comes by, all the better!
 

Once you know the railroad geography you can start to understand the industrial-age history (or lack of industrial history) of an area.  Railroads and especially the transcontinentals were the interstate highways of their day and follow the same general routes. In the Southwest, the CP-UP transcontinental route (1869) is now I-80, the AT&SF (A&P [1883]) route is I-40, and the SP Sunset Route (1883) is I-10.  So, whereas if you live in Tucson today, the I-10 is "your" freeway, a century ago the SP would have been "your" railroad.

​

As I learned more about railroads, I found it difficult to find information on their routes and histories.  It seemed that when I went to find information on the internet about a railroad or a grade I had encountered in my travels, it was difficult to figure out the origin of the railroad, which so often is lost in a history of name changes and mergers.  Then when I did find the original railroad online, most of the information was of corporate titans, legal and financial deals, and nostalgic information on the more recent operations of the railroad. It was more difficult to find information on the route and original construction of the railroad.  So I created a map.  

 

RAILROAD HISTORY MAP OF THE SOUTHWEST

I love maps and geography. A picture is worth a thousand words and a map is worth a thousand pictures. I created the Railroad History Map of the Southwest because the information I wanted couldn't be easily found and I wanted to look at a map of the entire railroad system of the Southwest.  The map systematically traces every railroad route in the map area and color codes segments of each route by episodes of construction.  The term "episode of construction" means a line segment of track that was substantially built and completed during a more or less continuous episode of construction. Each colored line segment is identified by the year in which the segment was completed, the railroad company that built the segment, the original track gauge, whether tracks are still present, and the current track gauge (or most recent gauge if the tracks are removed). The latter is important because many Southwest railroads were built to narrow gauge and later converted to standard gauge and one railroad converted from standard to narrow gauge (see "Gauges" section in "Tracks and Grades" page for more information).

 

The area covered by the map is bounded to the west by the Pacific Ocean and to the south by Mexico, but includes all connecting Mexican railways.  The eastern border is just east of the Mountain West, where Midwestern railroads on the Great Plains connect to Western railroads in the Mountain West. The northern boundary was chosen to include the Central Pacific - Union Pacific transcontinental, all of California, and northern connecting railroads.  The map and historical information compiled on the Railroad History Map are based on hundreds of online sources, online maps and satellite imagery, historical topographic maps, and field observations.

 

Southwest railroads are unique not only in their spectacular geological settings but also in their unique human histories; these are the railroads of the Old West. Imagine almost any Western movie, then imagine the iconic train steaming into town; the real railroads those trains represent are the lines shown in the Railroad History Map of the Southwest. For example, The 3:10 to Yuma, made twice into a movie, was on the Southern Pacific Sunset Route, which was the second transcontinental railroad.

 

THE GEOLINKS

Clicking a Geolink on the Railroad History Map of the Southwest takes you to a pdf file with photographs of railroad features at that location and interpretative text explaining the features. The text outlines the histories of the railroads in the photos and explains the railroad features in historical, geographic, and geologic context.

 

IN THE FIELD

With the Railroad History Map of the Southwest in hand, either printed or on a mobile devise, it is easy to find and identify railroads and abandoned grades in the field. I use two primary tools in the field: "DeLorme" topographic map atlases and a smart phone with a map app. The DeLorme maps provide a great overview of where you are and show all existing railroads and many abandoned grades. Locate yourself on the DeLorme and compare that to the Railroad History Map and it's pretty easy to tell what you're looking at in the field.

 

Smart phones help you locate yourself on the DeLorme map and sometimes are indispensable in finding railroads. I have found two situations in which my smart phone has helped me find railroads. The first situation is in cities or towns, where many of the key junctions are located. Once the DeLorme map and the Railroad History Map tell you that a particular junction is in Anytown, your smart phone can then direct you to the street in Anytown that will get you to the actual junction. The second use of smart phones, I've found, is that their maps are based on old topographic maps that show railroads that are now abandoned.  I have found abandoned railroad grades on my smart phone that are not even indicated on the DeLorme map. Also, satellite images on cell phones and computers provide fairly current information on the current track, or lack of track, and the locations of abandoned lines, which are often more evident satellite images in than on the ground.

 

PHOTOGRAPHY

The internet and paper publications are loaded with outstanding photographs of trains. Railroading grew along with photography, so railroad history is photo-documented.  The photographs are not only historically fascinating but also are often aesthetically very pleasing. The camera loved Jean Harlow and Clark Gable and it also loved trains. Train photography is an art form in itself and photographers have produced thousands of high quality photographs of vintage steam and diesel locomotion and other rolling stock as well as of historic railroad construction and features. Many websites and coffee table books are dedicated to train and railroad photography. The photographic styles range across a spectrum from documentary to artistic.

 

My railroad photography is not about trains, although some of my photos contain trains and some even feature trains. My photographs mainly center on tracks and grades and their contexts for georailfanning. I would submit that the camera loves tracks as much as it loves trains because tracks add eye-catching perspective to a landscape.  The majority of my photos are wide angle, which accentuates the perspective and convergence of the rails.

 

I take photos of what is at the site when I happen to be there. I don't wait for good lighting or for a train to come by, but sometimes I get good lighting and/or a train. I would like to think my photos have some aesthetically pleasing composition and "artistry," but the photos are all uncropped and unedited, using automatic exposure. The scenes are as I saw them in the field and generally as others will see these scenes in their explorations. The main emphasis of my photography is documentary; to capture the railroad features visible today in Southwest landscapes as a basis for understanding those features and the history they represent.

​

JUNCTION JUNKIE

Rail junctions are the nodes of the rail system. To understand a given rail line, I want to see both ends of the line and something in between. All rail lines, except isolated lines, have a junction at one end and either another junction or an end-of-track at the other end. Isolated lines, of course, have two ends-of-track. So georailfan explorations naturally lead me to ends-of-track and junctions, thus, "Junction Junkie!"  By the way, ends-of-track are cool in their own right, but "End-of-Track Junkie" just doesn't have the same ring.

​

Many of my photographs are of ends-of-track and junctions. Junctions can be single switches but more often are wyes.  Typically, but not always, the wye includes a straight track -- the "mainline" -- and a third track that T's into the mainline with two curved tracks and three switches to form a wye (see Tracks and Grades tab for definitions). The third track is typically a branch line that ends at an end-of-track, but can also be a connector line that ends at another junction. The single switch or wye typically connects with a siding of the mainline, not with the mainline itself.