Today’s Union Pacific trains roll through the desert country of the American Southwest on a three hundred mile journey between Tucson and El Paso. As part of the legendary Southern Pacific’s Sunset Route through Arizona and New Mexico, it is known as the Lordsburg Subdivision.

This doubletrack main line connects ports in southern California with eastern destinations like New Orleans, Chicago, and Houston, as well as, south of the border into Mexico. In part 1 of this twopart series, we will cover the western half of the subdivision between Tucson and Steins near the New Mexico state line. Trains crest four different summits including Mescal, Dragoon, Railroad Pass, and Steins Pass west of Lordsburg. Monster stack trains over three miles in length are common on the Lordsburg Sub.

There are plenty of mixed manifest and unit grain trains to keep things interesting. This is also the route of Amtrak’s Sunset Limited which makes a triweekly run over the line. In addition to mainline traffic, we will visit the San Pedro Valley Railroad at Benson and the Arizona Eastern which serves the large Morenci Copper Mine near Clifton.

This program was shot in April 2024

This program is available on DVD, Bluray, Streaming and Vimeo on Demand at 7ideaproductions.com. https://www.7ideaproductions.com/prod...