d in a leisurely way, down the valley of the
Rio Grande into New Mexico and in the direction of Albuquerque. In this
extension, as in later building, the line of the old Arizona trail was
usually followed. One writer has declared that "the original builders of
the Atchison followed the line of the Arizona trail so religiously that
if the trail skirted a ten-foot stream for a quarter of a mile to strike
a shallow spot for fording, the railroad builders did likewise, instead
of bridging the stream where they struck it, and where the trail ran
up a tree or hid in a hollow rock to avoid the wolves or savages, the
railroad did the same!"

The traveler of a generation ago over this particular section of
the Santa Fe lines might have felt that there was some truth in this
criticism; but the Atchison has long since cut out these idiosyncrasies
of early construction, and the main line in this section of New Mexico
is now noted for alinement and absence of curves and grades.

The builders of the Santa Fe lines in the early days no doubt planned
ultimately to penetrate to the Pacific coast, knowing that the real
opportunity for the road lay in that direction. The Southwest was yet
but sparsely settled; and no railroad which had as its objective the
plains or alkali deserts of Arizona or New Mexico could thrive--at least
it could not for decades to come. And yet in the early eighties the real
objective of the Atchison system had not been determined. Having
passed its original objective point, Santa Fe, the road had reached
Albuquerque, but it could not afford to stop there. Through traffic it
must have or die. New Mexico, with its thin population and its total
lack of development, could not supply traffic in sufficient amount even
to "feed the engines."

To extend somewhere, then, was an imperative necessity. But whither?
Several routes were under consideration. The Southern Pacific lines had
worked eastward to El Paso on the Mexican border, several hundred
miles due south from Albuquerque, and it looked feasible to extend the
Atchison to that point and arrange a traffic agreement with the Southern
Pacific, or to build an extension through New Mexico to Deming and then
westward along the river valleys and down into Mexico to Guaymas on
the Gulf of California. It was possible, in the third place, to build
directly west from Albuquerque through Arizona and Southern California
to the coast. Ultimately all of these plans were carried