Just saw this in my feed today, sounds promising, albeit by folks who seemingly admit to wanting to play trains. They have the pockets and hopefully the business sense...without any freight, I just hope they aren't in it to make money, cause it won't happen. It's a beautiful ride once you are out of the City limits.

https://www.abqjournal.com/1456291/work ... -lamy.html

It would be nice to be informed of a site that requires a subscription - before one does try to read the notice, just my opinion.

Harry Nicholls

I don't have a subscription, and I can see the article just fine.

Same. It’s a city newspaper.

You can usually bypass pay news websites by hitting the stop button a second or two after the page loads. You may have to refresh or close and reopen the site a few times to time it just right. But I have success with this the majority of the time.

This is very good news. I heard rumors about the line reopening again. I only rode the train once but it traveled through some very beautiful country. Was a fun train ride. I remember reading the previous railroad had serious issues with the city of Santa Fe. They got into a dispute over the Santa Fe depot and it ended badly for the railroad. That was the main issue of a returning tourist railroad. Both the yard and the depot was taken over by the rail runner commuter train who was not open to the tourist train at all.

Lamy sounds like a option but it is in the middle of nowhere. Nothing at all to do there. I remember reading the Santa Fe #2926 was considering doing some runs up that line. Not sure if this is a joint venture with them. The track is very old, and there is a few wood trestles. Could take quite a bit to get it going again.

Sad news to hear the lease is expiring with Amtrak. Amtrak stopped running on the Raton Pass route due to the virus (which is the only traffic). The BNSF has been trying to run Amtrak out of town for a long time now due to the old semaphores still in use on that line. This could add another nail in the coffin on that route. Very doubtful Amtrak would sign another lease considering there is usually only a few people getting on or off that location. Lets hope the Santa Fe #2926 gets it together soon, because that rail line is in serious jeopardy with officially no rail traffic of any kind.

The Southwest Chief is still running daily over the Raton Pass and has not missed a single run since the beginning of the virus. As for the semaphores, the BNSF is currently days/weeks away from cutting over a brand new signal system between Colmor and Levy replacing the semaphores and code line with brand new tri lights and electro code.

That is good to hear. That is unfortunate about the semaphores. It's too bad we will not get videos or photos of Santa Fe #2926 through that stretch. Hopefully the semaphores between Las Vegas and Chapelle will still be there.

For me, I got a pop-up ad that asked me to subscribe. I hit the X close button and read the article.

Brian

"He said his real motivation for being part of the acquisition group is so he can stand in the engine car and blow the whistle."

Uh...

So it's a free country and if you have the money you can buy whatever you want, but it would have been nice to see this railroad go to someone with a genuine interest in railroading and not these goofballs.

LOL, I seem to recall that one of the original investors in Santa Fe Southern was the actor who played Michael J. Fox's father in a 1980's sitcom (Family Ties?), I remember seeing a photo of him in Trains Magazine hanging on to a moving freight car and thinking "this won't end well".

Michael Gross is the actor's name, and he's also famous for Burt Gummer from the Tremors franchise. I wonder why he is no longer a part of Santa Fe Southern?

Mr. Gross will be 73 years old in a few days. This is a time of life where many people retreat from former activities, and/or change investments from growth to return. Or, for all we know, Mr Gross's priorities or interests may have simply changed. Or his financial planner(s) may have advised him to divest years ago. Or he's still there but just keeping a low profile.

Who knows? And as long at the railroad survives, is it important?

Michael Gross has not been a part of the Santa Fe Southern in well over a decade, as far as I am aware....if not longer.

I once heard the Santa Fe Southern was built on Family ties.

If I recall rightly, Micheal Gross had worked as a brakeman as a Summer job at one point, so he at least had some background in the business.