George R. R. Martin, author of the Game of Thrones books that led to the hit TV series, is branching off into a new line, specifically a branch line railroad in New Mexico, connecting Santa Fe with an Amtrak station at Lamy.
The historic line, first opened in 1880, last saw train service in 2012, and was used mainly for excursions from New Mexico’s capital city. It was always a spur line; when the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway got close to Santa Fe, engineers decided it would be too costly to run the mainline through the mountains, and built the spur instead. Perhaps it should have changed its name to Atchison, Topeka and Lamy!
The spur line closed in 1991, and was re-opened as the Santa Fe Southern Railway. The new owners, Martin, a local theater owner and National Dance Institute of New Mexico founder Cynthia Oppenheimer, hope to keep its assets from falling into further disrepair or disappearing altogether. According to Oppenheimer “There’s something about train travel that brings you back to a time that we assume was a simpler, more community-based time, long before the internet, before air travel, even before television.”
Once they’ve managed to repair track and bridges along the route, they plan to run excursions that will include entertaining arts and cultural events on train excursions and nearby, and perhaps even serve non-excursion passengers connecting with Amtrak’s Southwest Chief, which stops at Lamy, 18 miles from Santa Fe. Santa Fe also has commuter regional rail service connecting it with Albuquerque.
