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Sierra Central -History

Sierra, El Paso & Pacific Railroad

The Sierra Central Route

History

The Sierra, El Paso & Pacific Railroad, often referred to as the Sierra Central, operates between El Paso, Texas and Santa Fe, New Mexico.   In the 1930’s, the railroad had ambitions of expanding to the West Coast, but management could not overcome the financial strength of the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific as those two railroads fought for dominance in the Southwest in the first half of the 20^th century.

Route Map of the Sierra Central

Historically, the original railroad was built as the New Mexico Central at the beginning of the 20th century.   Business never developed as anticipated: the railroad went onto receivership.  The Santa Fe acquired the railroad in the 1920's.  By the early 1930's, the Santa Fe was disenchanted with their recent acquisition and began to abandon major sections of the mainline.

After the depression, Emil Zilch, a young down-on-his-luck businessman, was looking for a way to recoup his fortune that had been lost in the 1929 stock market crash.  With a background in mining engineering and a desire to relocate from the congested East Coast to the expansive Southwest, Zilch started investigating ore deposits in New Mexico and Eastern Arizona.   Since substantial coalfields had been developed in central and northwestern New Mexico, Zilch believed that additional coal and other mineral deposits could be found in the adjacent areas.   In the early 1930's, Zilch spent a substantial amount of time surveying the southeastern quadrant of New Mexico and talking to veteran prospectors.   One prospector was a grizzled old miner by the name of Richard X. Argo.   Argo was well acquainted with coal and mineral deposits in New Mexico and had claimed for years that large quantities of untapped deposits existed.   Zilch was inspired by Argo's claims.   The two men formed a partnership with the intent of discovering rich mineral deposits in southeastern New Mexico.  In less than a year Argo and Zilch found a large vein of coal in a canyon that was near the New Mexico Central’s torn up mainline, just north of Willard.  After staking claims to the land, they formed the Argo Mining Company.

With Argo focusing on developing the mining operations, Zilch realized that a railroad represented the best approach to shipping coal from the remote region.  The north portion of the New Mexico Central was clearly the preferred choice since no surveying would be necessary and the roadbed was still in good shape.  In approaching the Santa Fe, Zilch quickly realized that the railroad was looking for an opportunity to recover as much of their 1920 investment as possible.   After a short period of negotiation, Zilch bought the entire 115-mile mainline from the Santa Fe in June 1939, even though the line south of Willard had been abandoned and remains so today.

By early 1940 the Argo Mining Company was loading several dozen hopper cars daily.   The SC mainline had been diverted to allow for the building of a short spur track to access the car loading facilities.   A daily train brought empty hoppers from Willard and moved loaded hoppers to Willard for transfer to the Santa Fe.

Argo continued to prospect and found additional coal deposits in a region east of the Southern Pacific’s mainline between Vaughn and El Paso and west of the New Mexico-Texas border.  Argo quickly determined that these coal fields represented a major strike that would require a railroad to haul the ore to customers.  Zilch realized that the Sierra Central did not have the financial resources to build a new mainline and purchase needed motive power and rolling stock to support the mines.

Seeing that war was imminent, Zilch convinced the Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific to invest in the Sierra Central.   The three railroads formed a partnership with Zilch owning 52% and each railroad partner owning 24% of the Sierra Central.   Both railroads granted trackage rights, as shown on the Route Map.   Due to terrain limitations and expected traffic, it was agreed that a new mainline would be built from Corona, which is south of Vaughn, to the towns of Carriso, Cajon, Mesa and Seminole.   The Sierra Central mainline re-joins the Southern Pacific mainline at Orogrande, NM.

The Santa Fe and the Southern Pacific valued the parallel mainline as an alternate route to El Paso when their own mainlines suffered wash-outs caused by large thunder storms typical of the region.  

With the outbreak of WWII, mining operations accelerated to provide fuel for the massive US war production.   The resulting revenue allowed the Sierra Central to quickly pay off the large debt generated by the new mainline construction.  In early 1942 full passenger and freight service from El Paso to Vaughn was initiated.   At the same time, Zilch moved the company headquarters to El Paso in the same location as today.

The period between WW II and the Korean Conflict marks the pinnacle years in terms of the Sierra Central’s financial stability.   The Argo Mines continued to support the shipment tonnage established during WW II.   The town of Cajon grew with the construction of a coal and ore processing plant.   The town of Mesa remained unchanged as a small western town with turn-of-the-century building architectures.  However, due to its central location, the town attracted a number of industries, such as Del Monte and B-M Gas & Oil.   In addition to daily freight trains, several passenger trains provided a mix of services to local patrons as well as tourists, who covet the hot springs found in the mountains to the west of Mesa. 

Operating on the Sierra Central

The Sierra, El Paso & Pacific Railroad, which is commonly referred to as the Sierra Central, is a Class 2, north-south bridge line that links El Paso, TX with Santa Fe, NM to provide interchange service with the Denver & Rio Grande, Rock Island, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific railroads.

The time period for the Sierra Central is 1955 when steam still existed on some smaller railroads as the bigger companies moved to complete dieselization. The layout represents an actual railroad, the New Mexico Central that was absorbed by the Santa Fe in the 1920’s, then bought from the Santa Fe prior to WW II and expanded by the preeminent industrialist, the honorable Emil Zilch. 

The Sierra Central’s Southern Division mainline is 230 miles long and runs from Vaughn, NM south to El Paso, TX.   The railroad has trackage rights over the Southern Pacific from Vaughn to Corona and from Orogrande to El Paso.  The Sierra Central interchanges with the Santa Fe and Southern Pacific at Vaughn and at El Paso.   The Sierra Central uses Southern Pacific engine facilities at El Paso for maintenance and repair.  It is this portion of the Sierra Central that is modeled.

Rolling Stock and Motive Power

Since it is 1955, a mix of first and second-generation diesels and steam engines can be seen on a given day. Being a cost conscience company, the Sierra Central frequently leases motive power from railroads that it serves. Thus, Cotton Belt, Frisco, Katy, Rock Island, Santa Fe and Southern Pacific engines frequent the line. The backbone of the Sierra Central’s motive power is Alco-built Mikes and, more recently, Alco road switchers. While all of the steam engines are brass manufacturer products purchased before 1985, the diesels are all recent vintage plastic models (Atlas, Proto 2000 and Stewart) with some of them being repainted in a Sierra Central paint scheme.

Freight rolling stock is almost exclusively 40’ in length or shorter. There are a few

exceptions.  About half of the freight cars are kit-bashed and a few are scratch-built. A number of home road cars also exist. Passenger cars are a mix of Athearn plastic heavyweights, AHM and Walthers kit-bashes and a Ken Kidder brass kit. The cabooses on the Sierra Central are for the most part, Hallmark brass Katy cabooses of different vintage, each painted in the Sierra Central’s paint scheme. ATSF, Katy and SP cabooses also appear during operation.

Crew

During the rebuilding of the mainline, the Sierra Central is looking to hire on new crewmembers.   Critical prerequisites for joining the company are a love of model railroading, a keen sense of humor, the ability to take an occasional ribbing from management (particularly during operating sessions) and a willingness to follow the rule and regulations specified by the operations department.  Snappy comebacks to management’s ribbing are only allowed if the comment is very clever.

Plans

Design Objectives

Model Vaughn, NM and El Paso, TX prototypically, given the usual space constraints.   See attached maps.  Key points are:

• Vaughn has an interchange track between the ATSF and SP yards.   The ATSF has an earthen fly-over the SP mainline southwest of Vaughn.
• El Paso is bordered on the west by the Rio Grande River with the SP having two bridges that span the river.    The ATSF enters El Paso along the river: its mainline passes under the two SP bridges on the east side of the river.
• A large refinery along the river is served by the ATSF.
• The SP serves a large smelting operation, reefer icing facility and cement plant.
• El Paso Union Station served the ATSF, T&P and SP and was a well-known landmark until the end of passenger service by these railroads.

Develop a fictional mainline between the two towns to create more operating interest.   The towns of Cajon, Carriso, Mesa and Seminole are based on previous layout experience.

Situation

Often mainlines could be washed out by flash floods in the 50’s: I can personally attest to such an experience.   The operation will mimic such an occurrence for the ATSF so that its trains are being routed over the SP to reach El Paso.

Operation

The railroad will be run as an out-and-back operation.   Trains will originate at the ATSF and SP yards outside of Vaughn and run to El Paso.   There the trains will switch out the ATSF or SP industries and be made up for a return run.    A local interchange train between the ATSF and SP will be included.   Also, ATSF trains will arrive from and depart to another hidden two track yard that represents the ATSF mainline proceeding west out of Vaughn.

Train Schedule

The following table provides the schedule for the Sierra Central.   Passenger trains are scheduled and freight trains run as extras.  

Note: Trains 27 and 29 run on alternate days.

Train Descriptions

Train Numbering

The following table documents the train numbering system used by the Sierra Central.  Numbers outside the indicated ranges are illegal.