El Paso and Northeastern Railway
The EP&NE first connected El Paso with Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1897, further extensions allowed for tourist excursions to the Sacramento Mountains and some timber extraction.
When a line connecting to lucrative coalfields was secured, the holding company and its system were folded into the El Paso and Southwestern Railroad, an affiliate of the predecessor of the Phelps Dodge Corporation.
[5] In 1888 CRI&P engineers began a westward survey from Liberal, Kansas that projected never built lines through the Maxwell Land Grant to Taos, New Mexico and further west.
Just a few days after the first excursion trains operated on the new line, lawsuits were filed in court seeking restitution for the Texas and Pacific Railway, the unpaid shipper of the KCEP&M's construction materials.
Eddy received financial backing from these men but he did immediately not make any major announcements, file for incorporation in the territory or apply for the El Paso–White Oaks railway franchise.
[13] The logs harvested in the mountains provided the Alamogordo Lumber Company (owned by the NMRy&CCo) with many of the raw materials necessary to make the ties, poles and structures for the EP&NE's northward expansion.
[6] The El Paso and Rock Island Railway (EP&RI) was incorporated in 1900 by Eddy to build the remaining 128 mi (206 km) between Santa Rosa and Carrizozo.
[17] This effort was completed on February 1, 1902 when, under the direction of contractor George S. Good,[18] the EP&RI met the CRI&P, operating under the name Chicago, Rock Island and El Paso Railway while in New Mexico.
[19] It marked the opening of a new transcontinental route[20] that gave the CRI&P "the shortest line from Chicago and Kansas City to El Paso and Mexico, and by way of the Southern Pacific to Los Angeles.
[3] Eddy was still determined to link his railroad system to a mineral rich area so he hedged, on the advice of his trusted attorney William Ashton Hawkins, that the outcome of litigation about the ownership of part of the Maxwell Land Grant in northeastern New Mexico would favor the current tenant, an elderly rancher named John Dawson, and Hawkins secured the eventual purchase of a parcel of the contested land grant from him.
Construction of the southern section of the Dawson Railway, from a bridge over the AT&SF line to a junction at Six Shooter Siding (later Tucumcari, located 60 mi (97 km) east-by-northeast of Santa Rosa) with the CRI&P was held up due to litigation with the owners of the Pablo Montoya Grant over the proposed right-of-way.
[28]: 134–135 Since the line's opening, Summer excursion trains were operated into the Sacramento Mountains east of Alamogordo via the A&SM from El Paso, and under new ownership as late as 1930.
While the best consumers for the mill's output were the NMRy&CCo's interests, lumber was also shipped out on the EP&NE destined for other markets, especially the mining districts at Bisbee and Morenci, Arizona.
[31] Traffic on the A&SM line was not restricted to passengers and logs, a wide variety of other cargo was hauled including express, goods, machinery, produce, and livestock.
[35] All of these Chicago–Los Angeles trains used the EP&NE system as an intermediate link between the CRI&P at Santa Rosa and the Southern Pacific Railroad in El Paso.
[37] Another operational hurdle of the original EP&NE was also solved after the sale; Hawkins was able to secure legal rights to cleaner water from the mountains.
