#818 East bridge 7 summer 1997
Eastbound freight led by Santa Fe heritage C40-8W at bridge seven in the summer of 1997. Also in this consist is LMX #8552 a b39-8 GE and Santa Fe #7438 a b40-8 General electric. This is at bridge seven which is the eastern most bridge in Abo Canyon. This bridge is fairly short and to the west is a narrow cut and then bridge six. East of bridge seven is one of just a few short straightaways that you can look back to inspect part of your train. There is one more cut before you are at Scholle which is the start of the double track to Mountainair.
505 East above bridge 7 in Abo Canyon
This was December 27th 1997 and it was brutally cold. I started this day shooting around Mountainair and it was 14 degrees below zero. This was later the same morning and it had warmed up to about zero, but it was still cold!!! 505 a superfleet GE 8-40bw had just been repainted into the BNSF logo. This was an eastbound piggyback that was the first of three hot eastbound intermodals, in the space of 30 minutes through Abo Canyon. This area is east of bridge seven and west of the last cut and slide area before Scholle.
5389 east (empty autoracks)
This is a shot at sunrise in the summer of 1995, of #5389 an ATSF sd45 and two sd40-2'S with a long train of empty autoracks bound for Kansas City. This is the last cut at the east end of Abo Canyon. Scholle is a few hundred yards east of here. I also included this shot to give you an idea of what the slide fences in Abo Canyon look like.
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