Seven clips of Amtrak's Southwest Chief in the beautiful scenery of New Mexico. Of the seven clips, six are on the endlessly endangered passenger only segment of the Chief's Route. For 223, miles, over two mountain passes, the Southwest Chief is the only traffic - one train each way per day. Several years ago, Amtrak CEO Richard Anderson proposed that the entire segment be converted to a bus segment, which would have been a severe downgrade of service.
Instead, somehow, it hangs on. Most semaphores have been replaced, but a few remain. In this video, the Levy semaphores on the Raton Sub are shown first, and later a semaphore at MP 849.1 on the New Mexico-owned NMDOT Sub is shown. New signals are being installed, and many searchlight signals also remain.
Another unusual feature of the passenger-only segment - Rael Junction northeast of Albuquerque to Trinidad, CO - is extensive amounts of jointed rail, shockingly maintained for track speed of up to 79mph. Certainly no other Amtrak route has this much jointed rail, which you can hear in several clips. Stayed tuned to the end to really hear how that sounds!
