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The Sunset Limited (6) – US Rail Journeys Series 2 Episode 17
Near the Southern Border of the United States:
The Sunset Limited (6) continues our journey across Texas. We are near the southern border of the US and will later start to see the agriculture made possible by the Rio Grande.
The land certainly isn’t as bare as it was earlier, we pass an orchard and some ploughed fields with people working in them. This is certainly more hospitable than earlier when all we saw was a few cattle.
Some of the agriculture is supported by large irrigation systems.
Trying to catch up?
As we pass from agriculture back into semi desert the train picks up speed. I wonder if we are trying to recover from some of the delays that we’ve had earlier.
As we pass through the semi-desert we see a few birds of prey circling.
Points failure:
We slow and then stop. Lunch comes, and goes. People doze in the sun although the air conditioning is keeping the temperature pleasant.
We wait because there is a freight train ahead of us. Then we hear that there is a points failure. Two hours pass before we start again. There is a further delay because the eastbound Sunset Limited has to pass before we can proceed. We should have left El Paso over two hours before it arrived!
We finally get going again and as we approach El Paso, hours late, we reach 80 mph.
The photographs that accompany the podcast:
Please click on a thumbnail to open the gallery:
Next up:
I hope that you’ve enjoyed this podcast. If so, please join me in two weeks time for the next episode where we continue on the Sunset Limited through El Paso and along the southern border of the United States towards Los Angeles.
Links:
To visit the Amtrak website please follow this link.
You can also listen to this podcast on iTunes/Apple Podcasts, Castbox, Deezer, Podchaser, Spotify and Stitcher.
Music:
AKM Music has licensed the theme, Steam Railway, for use in this podcast.
Storyblocks has licensed Southern Border by Richard Ted Ivanoff and Mexican Cantina by Steve Glotzer for use as incidental music in this episode.
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