Almost nine years ago, BNSF Railway announced its intention to discontinue service of the Raton and Glorieta Subdivisions in Colorado and New Mexico due to a lack of sustainable traffic over the operational headache of Raton Pass. By the time 2008 rolled around, through freight traffic had run its course from Albuquerque to Trinidad, leaving only Amtrak's Southwest Chief to occupy the route on a daily basis. Since then, very few trains other than the Chief have graced the high-speed Santa Fe mainline between Trinidad and La Junta, CO, with the only freight traffic being the seldom-run trains avoiding the congested Pueblo Subdivision between Pueblo and La Junta. However, with declining coal traffic across the BNSF system, any trains that would have previously taken the Raton Subdivision have returned to their normal routing. With that being said, a nice surprise on a brisk first day of May was a special GE windmill train from Galveston, Texas to Garden City, Kansas that was being taken up Raton to La Junta after making the trip to Trinidad via the Twin Peaks Subdivision. Here, the train is passing a unique part of the BNSF system, the iconic Wig Wag crossing signal at Delhi, Colorado.
