Twenty Different Bridges in Thirty-Seven Miles

In April, a family emergency required a quick trip to Omaha. Avoiding cities where ever we could we found this road, highway 350 northeast out of Trinidad, Colorado on the Santa Fe / Raton Pass line. Out bound we noticed that nearly every single railroad bridge was different from the next, so we decided to document it on our return trip. Over a distance of  about 37 miles we photographed over 20 different bridges. My uncle, Tom Liddy spent his retirement on a huge ranch in western Nebraska. I once heard him say on a trip to Phoenix that his definition of traffic was "another car on the road". That's pretty much how it is out here. We wanted a picture, we just stopped...Enjoy! 

This illustrates that there do not have to be hard and fast rules on your railroad. All of these were all a mile or so apart and only a couple of them were the same.

A customer, that never lost sight of the dream.

The Southern Pacific / Lost Dutchman

The two different railroads are depicted with an interchange at Tempe Arizona in

a “could have been” alternate history. It is August of 1967, and cotton, citrus, and copper

reign.

The modeled Southern Pacific is close to the actual line between Phoenix and Chandler.

Locations include Tovrea, Tempe, Normal, Mesa, Chandler, with staging representing Phoenix

and Tucson. Tempe actually had 3 branches; the Kyrene1, Terrace, and the Creamery branch.

In the alternate history, the SP spun off the branches as well as the Tempe engine facility to the

Lost Dutchman RR.

The Lost Dutchman is a bridge line / tourist railroad owned by an eccentric Cajun

billionaire with minority interest held by both the Southern Pacific and the Great Northern.

The branches have been rationalised and freight traffic further developed so that the line is selfsupporting.

The tourist operation is the special interest of the Cajun. As a result, a significant

amount of “heritage” equipment is preserved and operated. Steam engines from a handful of

roads are kept at the Tempe roundhouse and there are historic freight and passenger car paint

schemes in service as well.

The Kyrene extends south from Tempe, serving the industrial park at Peterson, Oncroy

Ridge, Tyrell industries at Helena, Marathon Steel at Kyrene, and then the new industrial park

at Aptakisic. The Dutchman has redeveloped the area south of Kyrene by subletting it to the

Chicago Shortline Association2, and they named Aptakisic after an area near Chicago. The

raised area near the center is the only intact section that could be saved from the famous GSV

(in Phoenix) of Ed Ravenscroft3. That entire area is now the Aptakisic Artificial Shrub Corp,

and will get a chain-link fence at some point. The roundhouse and turntable (also from the

GSV) serve as overflow from the main shops in Tempe. The elevated track represents a grade

separation project over State Highway 347. The plate girder bridges were saved from the

original 1947 GSV layout in Chicago.

Future construction will complete the interchange in Tempe and run the LD to the

north. Locations will be Hayden Mills, Galveston, Uvalde, Gringo Junction4, Ephrata, and

Eden Perdu (all in Arizona). There will also be an inland car ferry operation (a la Slocan) on

Saguaro Lake from Butcher Jones Landing to Port Evangeline. Eden Perdu is a division point

and will have a yard, major car shops5, and Baker Paper Mill No.6. Staging and the Santa Fe

interchange will be at “Two Guns”, just west of Winslow and south of Canyon Diablo.

Traffic is managed by conventional CC&WB, control is DCC. Jobs currently work

Tempe Yard, the Engine Terminal, and Locals on the Kyrene and SP. No dispatcher (yet).

Welcome!

The Kyrene was the actual original line to Phoenix, built in the 1880’s.

2 Consortium: Glencoe Skokie Valley, Central of Wisconsin, and Colorado Northern

3 Aptakisic appeared in the Sep 72 MR p.41

4 Home of the “Monsters of Gringo Junction”.

5 “LD” devices are made and fitted here. The LD emblem is commonly seen on freight cars.

This mock-up of the Lost Dutchman was built as a "feasibility" study to see what would fit. The site was a given, but with that much space there were a lot of  possibilities. I have heard so many times from folks that they like their layout "but wish they could spread it out". Well here is a moderate size, single level layout "spread out" by design. Two features are worth mentioning: First, I have always been sensitive to "actual" orientation of real places, so the main towns, Tempe and Mesa have their actual compass positions. Second, there are three staging areas all feeding Tempe, so traffic will be interesting.

There is lots of construction visible in this view. Mesa will be under the lights along the wall on the right; Chandler will be where the saw horse stands.

This is the locomotive wash rack at the Tempe engine terminal. Because the Lost Dutchman is a tourist operation as well as a freight bridge line, there are steam engines that require some servicing beyond what diesels require.

This is my Grandfathers Morse "practice" set. He was a telegrapher on the T&NO in Houston. Oh the stories he could tell!

This is the "shoo-fly" over the Salt River. Once the Central Valley pin truss bridges are ready, they will replace the plywood. The CV kits are almost a perfect math for the actual bridge. We will have six spans in all which will be impressive, but still shy of the actual nine spans which would consume fifteen feet plus the trestle approaches.

We use cards & waybills to route our traffic. This is one of the boxes which serves an

 operating area.

An overview of North Tempe. Construction is the main thing visible now, but packing houses and freight sheds are coming!

Caption for this and the photo below.

 The cotton farms between Normal and Mesa. Note the irrigation sprinklers among the cotton. It is green now, but will soon be sprayed to dry the plants and make picking easier.

Caption for this and the photo below.

 This gate allows passage between Tempe and Kyrene Jct.. The door knob is user friendly, and the adjusting knobs allow for precise track alignment.

Overview of  South Tempe. The cotton compress in the foreground receives field "light" bales and cleans, combs, and compresses the fiber into large "heavy" bales to send to the mills. As a side operation, cottonseed oil is extracted and sent to market.

This is Kalil Bottling in our alternate universe. The plant has six different spots for freight traffic and requires the switch crews to plan ahead. The building is in progress, still needing windows, etc.

Caption for this and the photo below.

Tempe roundhouse. Tempe is the south end of the Lost Dutchman main line, and this complex is the principal shop area for Dutchman steam.

We planned ahead and made steps under the Salt River bridge. There will come a time when stooping will not be possible and the steps will still work.

Our thanks to the author and designer. Preferring to understandably remain anonymous, we very much  appreciate the opportunity to photograph his work in progress.

Stay tuned! Construction has already altered these views and for those modelers who have lived in the valley for a long time you may recognize the name Ravenscroft? That area was accidentally left out of this photo session so when we return with progress pics you will get to see the Ravenscroft Area.

Thanks,

Hope you were inspired!