On September 8, 2001, BNSF sold 56 miles of its Deming Subdivision to the Southwestern Railroad. Included in the sale was the former Santa Fe line from Rincon (where it connects with the BNSF El Paso Subdivision) to Deming, and an additional 5 miles of track from Deming to Peruhill, where the Deming Sub connected with Southwestern's former Santa Fe line to Whitewater and Hurley. Southwestern now operates all local traffic over the former BNSF Deming Subdivision, and interchanges with BNSF at Rincon. BNSF retains ownership of the Rincon yard. Additionally, Southwestern now forwards BNSF unit coal trains (previously operated by BNSF crews) from Rincon to Deming, where they are interchanged to the UP for delivery to the Arizona Electric power plant at Cochise, Arizona. Southwestern also handles the return movement of these coal trains when empty.

The pages presented here illustrate my observations of the Southwestern's operations on the Deming Sub. The first section, "First Look at the Deming Subdivision", contains photos that I took in October 2001, just one month after SW took over the line. The photos in the second section, "Round Trip to Rincon", were taken in March 2004 and illustrate a typical round trip on the Deming Sub from Deming to Rincon and back. SW typically makes three such round trips per week, usually on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, but the schedule sometimes varies as dictated by customer requirements, track work, trains working on line, etc.

Hope you enjoy the photos. - WSC