I published ABQ-KCY a couple years ago, and I will be doing KCY-CHI later this year.
As always, comments are welcome!! (I know there is a lot of geology in this guide, but there aren't that many interesting Old West towns to talk about! I did catch a few of them though!)
I am having software problems with my web site, so it may be a while before I do any more guides.
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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One town, mentioned in your previous SWC log (ABQ-KCY), stands out as an interesting old west town with a recent personal memory -
Last summer my wife, daughter aged 6 at the time, and I were wheeling up I-25 in a rental car heading from Albuquerque to Canon City, CO when my daughter utters those dreaded words - "Daddy, I need to go to the bathroom......"
We hopped off the interstate at Springer, NM and followed the Santa Fe line into town. It was Sunday afternoon and there was NOTHING open. No convienence store. No gas station. No restaurant. No bar. NOTHING. To be honest, Springer had that 'eternally by-passed' look about it and I don't believe that any of the various establishments in town were going to reopen again the next morning or ever. We would have been as out-of-luck any other day of the week as well.
Eventually we reached the north end of town and found the Santa Fe Trail Museum mentioned in your route guide. The museum was an eclectic mix of stuff in a three story building which looked like it might have once been the courthouse..... or a school. It had been used as both during the course of it's 100-plus years..... as well as a small prison.
Simply looking for indoor plumbing we found a place worthy of an hour spent looking at things that we would have never seen had it not been for the need of a potty stop!
-------------------- David Pressley
Advocating for passenger trains since 1973!
Climbing toward 5,000 posts like the Southwest Chief ascending Raton Pass. Cautiously, not nearly as fast as in the old days, and hoping to avoid premature reroutes. Posts: 4203 | From: Western North Carolina | Registered: Feb 2004
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David -- I can believe that about Springer! Many years ago, my first wife & I spent a few days in a town near Springer called Roy (nowhere near the RR line!, but we did take the SWC from Chicago to Raton to meet our friends!)-- our friends' family had a ranch there, and we went into "downtown Roy" a couple times. Downtown Roy is a lot like what you saw in Springer, only worse! Roy was almost a ghost town itself back in 1976 when we visited! The uncle of our friend used to be a printer in Roy, but I believe his printing business had long ago closed, even by that time. He did give me some 1960's-era geologic field trip guidebooks published by the New Mexico Geological Society, which he printed -- I had hoped to use a couple of those as references for the new SWC route guide (the Zuni Mtns guidebook & one for the Albuquerque area), but they would have added a lot of technical information which is WAY beyond the scope of my guides, and, even though parts of the field trip road logs follow either the railroad or I-40/Old 66, it would have been quite a challenge to locate on my maps the exact points of interest (rock exposures, fault locations, etc.) that they mention in their road guides.
I'm glad you actually found a point of interest that I mentioned in my ABQ-KCY guide!! I guess my sources of info aren't that inaccuarte after all!!
Posts: 2428 | From: Grayling, MI | Registered: Mar 2002
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