In the early 1970s, the Santa Fe Railway expanded their yard in Barstow, in southern California’s Mojave Desert, by extending it – basically building a whole new yard – west of the original yard. This newer yard is much larger than the old one with 48 sorting tracks and a total area of 593 acres. Employing about 1000 people, this yard is the second largest railroad yard west of the Rocky Mountains, a bit smaller than Union Pacific’s JR Davis Yard in Roseville CA. All freight traffic to and from Southern California on the BNSF runs through this yard, which includes a hump for gravity sorting of cars, an area for fueling trains passing through between California and points east, and also a large diesel shop. Today, the yard is owned and operated by the BNSF Railway, previously Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, created when the Santa Fe and Burlington Northern merged in 1995. The Barstow Yard is seen at sunset on July 14, 2021.
A continuously growing album of photos that IMHO reveal the awesome and seldom-seen beauty of the railroad world from the dimming of day to dawn's early light! From dusk to dawn, trains roll on! (I'm still finding gems of sunset-to-sunrise surprises!)
