Santa Fe Southern

Company History: SFSR was launched in 1992 to take over operation of the former Santa Fe line from Santa Fe, New Mexico to a connection with AT&SF’s passenger main at Lamy. Although AT&SF gave the city of Santa Fe big billing in their name, it was never a major source of traffic for the railroad. The bulk of SFSR business has been tourists. They had just two freight customers, a beer distributor that received insulated boxcars of beer, and a quarry that loaded hoppers of red basalt rock that was used for landscaping. They later lost the beer business. By 2009, they were moving about 1 freight car every two weeks. The following year, the railroad was sold to GTI-Global who wanted to use the line to test their line of railroad safety systems. The SFSR announced they were suspending operations in 2013, then had a brief re-launch the following year, only to close again. In 2020, the SFSR was sold again, this time to Bill Banowsky (movie producer and former CEO of Landmark Cinemas,) Catherine Oppenheimer (founder of the National Dance Institute of New Mexico,) and George R.R. Martin (on whose books the HBO series “Game Of Thrones” is based.) The three hope to revive tourist operations on the SFSR.

Note the SFSR paint scheme in the last photo finished 8th in the Worst Paint Schemes of North America as voted by readers of Railroad of the Day.

Brief History: The U.S. is a country of 50 states covering a vast swath of North America, with Alaska in the northwest and Hawaii extending the nation’s presence into the Pacific Ocean. Major Atlantic Coast cities are New York, a global finance and culture center, and capital Washington, DC. Midwestern metropolis Chicago is known for influential architecture and on the west coast, Los Angeles' Hollywood is famed for filmmaking.