Thank you. Going up that canyon must have been a pretty spectacular ride. The
C&S abutted some beautiful scenery along the eastern flank of the Rockies. The
pictures I've seen of the branches that got a little deeper into that country
(Owl Canyon, Horse Creek) are fascinating ? wish there were more; they'd make
great modeling subjects.
Jonathan
--- In CBQ@yahoogroups.com, Q5632west@... wrote:
>
> Hi Jonathan and all:
>
> This is pretty obscure and remote C&S trackage even though it's not far
> from Raton as the crow flies. The information below refers to the
> Maxwell Land Grant, New Mexico's largest grant, as I recall, which
> extended into Colorado but mostly was in New Mexico taking in a huge
> section of forest, range and coal country around, south and west of
> Raton. My additions in parentheses.
>
> This is from: Myrick, David F., "New Mexico's Railroads: A Historical
> Survey," University of New Mexico Press, Albuquerque, N.M., Revised
> Edition, 1990, pp. 136-37.
>
> "The Colorado and Southern operated only one branch in New Mexico.
> Dating back to the days of the DT&FW (Denver, Texas & Fort Worth), the
> 14-mile branch was built from Trinidad, Colorado, to Sopris, thence up
> Long's Canyon in 1888, terminating at Maxwell, Colorado. In 1890, the
> managers of the Maxwell Land Grant, in a further move to develop their
> resources, persuaded General (Grenville) Dodge to extend the Maxwell
> branch along Long's Canyon into New Mexico to Cemetery Canyon where it
> looped back to climb over the ridge to a point in the Canadian River
> basin which was given the name of Catskill. To meet the objective of
> the managers of the grant, the railroad was extended in both directions
> along the Canadian River from Catskill to serve the prospective lumber
> operators. Northwesterly, a 12-mile branch was built to Vasquez in
> 1890 while a nine-mile branch was built southeasterly to Dunn's and
> Newton between 1890 and 1897. In all, the C&S lines southwest of
> Trinidad totaled 48 miles of which about 30 miles were in New Mexico."
>
> Myrick goes on to say 11 sawmills were built on the branch but didn't
> generate enough traffic to support the line. All but five miles of the
> track were pulled up in 1902 and 1908 with that last five miles
> (Trinidad-Jansen-Long's Junction) taken up in 1940.
>
> The C&S main from Trinidad through Clayton, N.M., to Amarillo, Texas,
> continues in operation, of course, but sometime after the BNSF merger
> became directional westbound hosting empty unit coal trains and other
> traffic.
>
> Bill
>
> Bill Diven
> Placitas, N.M.
>
> -30-
>
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