Santa Fe new Mexican. [volume] (Santa Fe, N.M.) 1898-1951, 1898-11-29
The CORKSCREW ROAD.
The Sacramento Mountain Line Of the Ell
Paso & Northeastern Road Has 30 De-
gree Curves and Difficult En-
Uinaering Features,

cheering Features.
Considerable is being written about
the Sacramento Mountain branch of the
Ell Paso & Northeastern road, familiar
ly known as the White Oaks road; and
from the peculiarly difficult engineering
features in connection with it, the line
is likely to receive special attention
from a scientific point of view, as well
as a scenic
The branch of q miles in length has
just been finished, and winds up the
mountain from ~Alamogordo station to
the crest of the Sacramentos. The line
is a tangent from ~Alamogordo to the
mouth of La Luz anon along the vast
Tularosa plain, which runs up to the
foothills of the Sacramentos. But from
the mouth of the canon, over GO per cent
of mileage is curved with a rise of 3,7OO
feet above ~Alamogordo, the station it
self being 4,300 feet above sea level.
| Owing to the sudden declivity in the
formation, the course of the stream can
not be followed after half the ascent has
been accomplished, so zig-zags are re-
sorted to over the rough, rocky country
where 80 degree curves are the rule, and
the grades are as high as 51a per cent.
At n place on the road in the climb,
there are three tracks parallel with not
| 1000 feet between them.
"A road of this character requires
special motive power. Two specially
designed locomotives have proven fail
ures, but a third attempt has been sue
c~essful, and has not yet jumped the
track. However, ordinary passenger
and box cars, if well set up on their
bearings will pass over the road with
out difficulty. The road was designed
to haul logs from UP the mountain
down to the saw mill at the foot Of the
grade in Alamogordo. Sixty pound steel
rails are used, the road bed is perfect,
and the curves are as true as if turned
that way at the mill. The logs are sawn
into ties and railroad timber at the mill,
and the supply is so great hat all the
railroads in the southwest can be equip
ped with ties and timbers for many,
many years. In fact there will be no
more ties shipped into the west from
Louisiana and eastern Texas, as has
been the custom for years past. The
Ell Paso & Northeastern management
only contracted for enough Louisiana
ties to track the road to A~lamogOrdo,
and then when the line was built up
into the mountains there were no more
ties from the east. All the timbers for
the rest Of the line to Liberal, Kas., will
be taken from the crest of the Sacra-
mentoes, and the Rock Island, the Gulf,
the Santa Fe, Mexican Central, Corral
itos, and the Pacific division of the
Southern Pacific will be using Sacra-
mento timber and ties.
The scenery up in that country is un-
supposedly grand, the climate is ire
proachable with its mild and inoffensive
winters; and when the country gets the
advertising it deserves, there will be a
great rush for that part of New Mexi-
co, particularly by persons DESTROYS of
escaping from the rigors of the north
ern winters.
Alamogordo will be the county seat
of the new county, if Tularosa does not
get it. Representative Llewellyn pro-
poses to call that new county either
Stuyvesant or Van Rensselaer,.
In the meantime, people are flocking
into that section of the territory, and
villages and towns are rising as if by
magic from nothing into well populated
eenters. There will be direct connection
by rail between Santa Fe and Albu-
querque and Las Vegas and the south
eastern part of New Mexico sooner
than is 10 imagined, thus avoiding
the long, tedious trip around via Ell
Paso. The territory is bound to grow,
and is growing rapidly.