Imagine passengers encapsulated within a shiny, new train car, gazing out on an industrial and often decayed desert landscape. It’s a lush and uniquely New Mexican juxtaposition of prosperity and poverty, modernity and the pastoral—an experience possible via the state’s roadrunner-themed commuter train. Already coursing across the brown and blue landscape between Belen and Sandoval County, the Rail Runner, which began its travels in the summer of 2006, arrives in Santa Fe in December. When completed, the project will have cost the state a few hundred million contentious dollars. For all of its practicality and novelty, the train also provides the state with a tremendous form of entertainment. So in light of this year’s photo contest we got in on the action and, with views from the newfangled locomotive as our subject, engaged in our own amateur digital photography.
From The Window Of The Rail Runner
1 min read
Views of the Southwestern Brewery & Ice Co. building at 601 Commercial NE. This four-story structure is one of few surviving buildings from Albuquerque’s railroad era.
An abundance of graffiti enhances the visual experience for passengers traveling south toward Downtown Albuquerque.
New train, old tracks.
This facility is cooking up large vats of...something.
This agricultural scene captured a few weeks ago probably didn’t look much different a century back. Will it still look this way in another hundred years?
If you look closely, you can see Boxcar Bob waving at you.
Ruins just across the street from the Downtown Bernalillo station are a reminder of our colonial past.
Hwy 313, also known as El Camino Real, runs alongside the train tracks from the northern portion of Fourth Street through Algodones.
Albuquerque, home of the world’s largest shuttlecock.
Nice window there, Don. Or is that a door? Either way, you can see it for yourself just north of the Downtown Albuquerque stop.
Cement blocks (in the North Valley): Coming to a New Mexico wall near you.
The upper level of the train's exceedingly cozy interior. By the end of the year laptop owners will be able to access wireless onboard.
The Rail Runner is bilingual. El Rail Runner es bilingue.
